Of these two 20" planers which would the more experienced buy?

[David Kumm]

For 3K the best planer would be an older PM 180 with a byrd head replacement. Much better made and will hold value better. Dave

[Don Wacker]

I have a buddy that owns an equipment surplus company. He buys scratch and dent Jet and powermatic by the container full along with oliver and used griz. The parts on what would seem to be the same machines by looking at pictures are not interchangeable. The overall fit and finish on the parts you cant see on the PM and oliver are much nicer that the griz and even jet.

Don

[Van Huskey]

For 3K the best planer would be an older PM 180 with a byrd head replacement. Much better made and will hold value better. Dave

I agree but in a lot of places a solid 180 will run you 2K and the Byrd is around $1500 for them. But they are a HECK of a good planer. Hermance will sell you a extremely well refurbished one for a mere 10K with their head, which is very nice. The bottom line is if you get a PM180 add the head and do a basic refurb on it you can probably use it for ten years and get every penny back out of it.

[Van Huskey]

I have a buddy that owns an equipment surplus company. He buys scratch and dent Jet and powermatic by the container full along with oliver and used griz. The parts on what would seem to be the same machines by looking at pictures are not interchangeable. The overall fit and finish on the parts you cant see on the PM and oliver are much nicer that the griz and even jet.

Don

Your buddy wouldn't happen to be in Washington would he?

As for the "new" Oliver they don't have anything generic I can think of in their line. About the only thing PM has based on a generic model would be their 14" BS which some stuff probably is generic parts and their 4 post planers like the 15 and 209, even in these models they tend to have things that differentiate them and prevent cross shopping parts. As to the quality for me I have my opinion but is isn't substantiated well enough with first person knowledge to comment on.

The bottom line is Grizzly can probably sell a machine of equal quality to a PM for less money given their perceived volume but who knows what each companies business model is.