Big ol' Planer

[Casey Carr]

Ha, everything I see is on the east coast! Plenty in Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinoise, Jersey, etc. Rarely do I see anything in Cali or AZ. And never anything in single phase!

[Greg Portland]

This all begs a question, what makes a rough planer and what makes a finish planer? Obviously a planer with a slower feed rate and/or faster cutterhead and/or more knives has the ability to produce a finer finish. A planer that has self set knives would be easier to set to produce a fine finish. If you are skip planing at a lumber yard the criteria is a lot different than final dimensioning. In the end what criteria are used when proclaiming the PM180 and its ilk as a rough planer?

My personal criteria is the number of passes required through the drum or wide belt sander (at progressive grits) before the surface is finish ready. If I can skip 80 and/or 120 grit then that is a big plus.

[Myk Rian]

I just finished a cabinet job this fall at a shop with a PM 180', and I have no love loss for that boat anchor, IMMHO. Yes, it's large. And heavy too. The knives were freshly sharpened. The machine reasonably well adjusted. But it's a big noisy cranky rough piece of work. I can get a better surface quality with a rigid lunch box, and a similar feed rate with my delta Delta 380 at home. It's a very cool looking hunk of iron in a nostalgic sort of way, but I'm not a nostalgic sort of guy. Surface quality was poor, chatter marks were large, passing stock less than 1/2" thickness was difficult.

It's obvious to me that planer isn't setup properly.
I have access to a PM180 at our middle school. Our WW club services it. It leaves a nice finish, requiring a minimum of sanding.

[Chris Rosenberger]

My personal criteria is the number of passes required through the drum or wide belt sander (at progressive grits) before the surface is finish ready. If I can skip 80 and/or 120 grit then that is a big plus.

That makes my 180 a finish planer, I only run 150 grit on my wide belt.

[Jeff Duncan]

Ha, everything I see is on the east coast! Plenty in Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinoise, Jersey, etc. Rarely do I see anything in Cali or AZ. And never anything in single phase!

Do you check your local auctions??? For instance I see stuff on flea bay on your coast all the time.....usually shapers as that's what I'm into these days. Finding big machinery in single phase is going to be your single biggest hurdle....there's just not a lot of it b/c factories almost always had 3 phase power. It made sense for them to buy 3 phase whenever possible as it's a more reliable motor. If your stuck on single phase you may want to start looking for smaller planers as the larger ones may be quite elusive.

good luck,
JeffD

[Peter Quinn]

It's obvious to me that planer isn't setup properly.
I have access to a PM180 at our middle school. Our WW club services it. It leaves a nice finish, requiring a minimum of sanding.

Did you ever process 40K BF of lumber per week for years through the planer at the middle school? You can't set up worn out junk properly no matter how good you are. This thing was set up decent by a professional mechanics, but it had a hard life, and its well past prime. My standards are high for a finish planer, and the best 180 I've used was nearly ok, not great. If the OP wants a great piece of old iron, IMO and IME, thats not necessarily it. Crap shoot at best. Now if the OP had said "I want to grind 10K BF of white oak into flooring"....well sure, that thing could run all month and never get tired. But most of those 180's are for sale that cheap for a reason. A good reason. Another issue to watch out for? Segmented chip breaker and feed roller were an option on the 180. The one I used last had solid feed roller and chip breaker, and if you fed more than one piece of material at a time, the second one either stalled or came back at you. Real nice feature there. For cabinet work where you start with rough stock, flatten, then plane, thats a real deal breaker. If you don't have the segmented feed and chip breaker, you really don't have a great machine.

This thing I was working with had some condition issues, but I've worked with several of them at one point or another, and my little DC380 gives a better surface than any I've tried. One that I worked with started to taper boards almost randomly, chatter got pronounced, needed a tear down and rebuild, all new bearings, springs, etc. So they did it. Then they did it again 5 years latter. Something out of balance was eating the thing. They could have sent it to a machine shop for a serious balancing and rebuild, but at that point a better machine starts to look attractive. If a machine gets bought new, spends its life in a school where it gets used a few hours each week for light work, then its probably working about as well as a 180 ever did. But many of them got a lot more use than that. All I can really say is for industrial use, its not BOB, and for the average hobby shop it takes up a lot of space without offering much advantage to the user.

[Myk Rian]

....through the planer at the middle school? You can't set up worn out junk properly no matter how good you are. This thing was set up decent by a professional mechanics, but it had a hard life, and its well past prime...

Saying that in the first place might have helped.

We just used our 180 at the school tonight. I planed some 5/8 cherry, then it was used to do some 1/4" oak. All of it came out great.

The PM180 is a great planer. Leaves a nice finish when setup properly, and not worn out.
It's up to the buyer to determine if a machine is beyond help. Just because it's for sale, doesn't mean it is.

I'm perfectly happy with my DW735.

[Van Huskey]

Did you ever process 40K BF of lumber per week for years

One that I worked with started to taper boards almost randomly, chatter got pronounced, needed a tear down and rebuild, all new bearings, springs, etc. So they did it. Then they did it again 5 years latter.

I am not trying to be argumentative just trying get the facts, if they are the same planer or one being worked at hard, that is a full rebuild at a milliion board feet and I have no frame of reference, a Buss may have just been getting broken, but that seems like a pretty reasonable amount of work to expect from a "light duty" planer.

[Larry Edgerton]

Peter doesn't really say what he is comparing to, but as a reference, my 180 was in very good shape. It still did not compare in any way to SCM, but I paid over 10K for the SCM and had about $2500 in my 180.

Not sure what a new 180 cost, but I would bet it was comparable to the SCM with adjusted dollars. Time marches on......

That being said, the used 180 in decent shape is going to kick the butt of any new planer in the same price catagory, and it is all done depreciating.

Larry