Powermatic 54HH issues

[Paul McGaha]

Michael,

i'm glad to hear this story had a good ending.

Good that Powermatic took care of you.

Just a guess but probably all the tool companies have cases like this and how they respond is important.

PHM

[ron ogle]

Have 8 inch powermatic with byrd cutters.Cutters are great ,jointer is not.Just another off shore piece of junk painted gold.powermatics good name is done for.it took me several hours to get the tables close to lined up.One of the locking set screws was missing.the tables had to be sanded down to 1200 grit to get the wood to slide on it.the fence is not flat and when face jointing the wood would sometimes catch on the edge of the opening where then plastic insert for sliding the fence is.I had to take fence apart and file down edge so it didnt catch.Cast iron tables were not cured and after about 50 ft of hickory was face jointed has many sctratches in it! Also cutterhead eighth inch less than 8 inch.It is just another Grizzly with gold paint and inflated price tag.When I started to try and level the tables I called powermatic because there is no round cutterhead to set the outfeed table with and they told me just to set on a level floor and adjust the outfeed table to level.I then new I was in trouble. Also the sides of the infeed table look like they were cut with a cutting torch and not finished which causes the table to be very jerky when trying to raise and lower. So let this be a warning to stay away from Meir tool group as they are just using powermatics good name.

[Lewis Cobb]

Michael -
Glad to hear alls well at last.
Fire up some gloat pictures when you have the chance !
Cheers,
Lewis

[Van Huskey]

Glad to hear they took care of you! One of the big plusses for spending the extra money on PM stuff is the "come to you" service when it is warranted.

[glenn bradley]

The repair man is coming out tommorow affternoon. We shall see what happens.

That is excellent. I have read good things about PM's service and am glad to read another.

[Mark Carlson]

What Rick said. I put a bryd head on a 54A and thats what I did. Should take all of 10 minutes.

~mark

If I understand your problem correctly you can shim under the bearing journals and adjust the head. One can see the solution by simply looking at the parts breakdown. It's a simple fix. You can get a cheap feeler gauge from an auto parts store for $5. I would not recommend the soda can fix. I keep a pack of assorted brass shim stock on hand as I work on machines. Simple quick fix.

[Denis Kozlov]

Hi to all,

I recently got 54HH and I think my out-feed table is not parallel to knifes too.
If I put straight edge and on out-feed table and rotate knife, it gets pulled 2/16in on one side (fence side) and 4/16in on the outer side.
you can check this video I captured. Can someone check it and let me know if I should contact PM in my case. I want my jointer to be perfectly adjusted. Thanks in advance.

[Andrew Hughes]

That's too far out. It will be impossible to get a square edge off the fence.

[Denis Kozlov]

I just called to PW, they suggested that I do adjustments myself using gib screws.
They said it is my job to adjust the tool after I get it and they have noting to do unless there is some problem.
As author of this topic mentioned, I have to take off fence in order to do it. They didn't sound it is a big of the problem.

[Denis Kozlov]

Some more details: I used dial indicator to check misalignment and it was 0.005in difference between out-feed table and knife (different sides). On the other hand, out-feed and in-feed tables are straight to each other (less than 0.001in difference). It means that table beds are good and if I will try to reset out-feed table like Powermatic support suggested it will mess with in-feed and out-feed tables alignment. Unless I want to realign both tables sides (don't think it is a good idea). It sounds to me that knife is shifted and it shim knife or something like that makes more sense. Should I try to call again to Powermatic support or try to return item if it is not too late (ordered on Amazon)?

Crazy guess: knife lower on puller side, can it be that the belt tension is too tight so it pulled knife down?

[Mark Carlson]

Your tables are flat and aligned, I wouldn't touch them. I'd slip a .005 in shim under the low bearing and that should do it. It should be as easy as loosening a bolt that holds the bearing slip in shim and retighten. When I converted my 54a over to using a byrd head, I had to shim one side to get the head parallel. Good luck.

[Denis Kozlov]

Thanks Mark, I shimmed one side of cutter and it seems worked just fine.

[CPeter James]

This is one reason that I am not a fan of insert cutterheads. I have worked on a Grizzly 12" jointer with the insert head. This was Grizzly's top of the line with the adjusting handles/wheels in the base cabinet. It is the parallelogram type jointer and it is not possible to get the table coplaner because you run out of adjustment in the offset bushings. There are factory installed shims under the cutterhead, but to loosen the bolts the secures the bearing to the jointer, you have to lift the jointer off the base. Piece of cake except all the linkage to the adjusting handles has to be undone and a bunch more stuff undone and removed just to access that bolt and make the required shim placements. I figure one long day and maybe two to do the job. This is not my first trip around the block as I work on machinery all the time.
CPeter

[Mark Carlson]

Very easy to do on a powermatic 54. Cant speak to other machines. Well worth the effort to not have to adjust knives ever again.

[glenn bradley]

Different strokes. I bought a P-bed machine because I never wanted to fool with dovetail ways again. We all have our peeves. The insert head was partially a financial decision. It has paid for itself a couple of times to date. With the Powermatic being 40% more than the competition I too would expect something better.