Photo Index - Powermatic Machine Co. - PM 225

Machinery Photo Index

Manufactured/Badged by:
Powermatic Machine Co.
McMinnville, TN; La Vergne, TN

Machine Specifications
Machine Class:	Wood Working Machinery
Machine Type:	Planer, Wood
Machine Size:	24" x 8"
Submitted By:	Aaron Hall

Machine Specifications
Description/Model:	PM 225
Date of Manufacturer:	1960's
Serial Number:	92438
Last Updated	1/5/2008 4:14:49 PM

Comments:

I purchased this 24" Powermatic Thickness Planer on E-bay. The seller told me that it came out of a high school west of Oklahoma City. It came with the knife grinder and knife jointer and was in need of a thorough cleaning when I got it. My brother and I completely disassembled the machine, cleaned it, and repainted it. Its now in my shop and running nicely. Here are the specs: 7.5 hp motor, 4 knife cutterhead, 4800 rpm, 20-100 fpm variable feed rate, powered bed rollers. This machine has been outfitted with PM's newer style dust collection hood. This dust collection hood is sized for an 8" duct, but it does very well with the 6" line on my 3hp Dust Gorilla.

This machine was an upgrade for me from my PM 221. The 4th knife and the faster cutterhead give me about double the cuts per inch. I recently used this machine to surface some highly figured black walnut boards that were ~ 14" wide. These boards had crotch figure, large knots, and large areas of reversing grain in them. By any standards they were exceptionally difficult to surface without tearout. I ran the boards carefully, took light cuts, used the slowest feed rate, and made sure that I was feeding each board in the most favorable direction. This PM 225 surfaced all four boards with no tearout! It created a surface on this black walnut that was as good or better than the surface created by my General 880 jointer. Bottom line: this planer is exceptionally good at surfacing highly figured wood!

I learned a few things when I tore this machine down. First, its more complex than I expected, lots of little parts especially in the feed system and the sectional infeed roller & chip breaker. Second, everything is built extremely heavily. We used a two ton overhead crane to handle the parts as we disassembled this machine. I don't think that we could have done the job without it. It took two people to lift the cutterhead once it was out of the machine, and we used the crane to get it out. Third, we found that the lateral adjustment of the sprockets in the feed system is important especially as you lower the bed to the 7"-8" thickness range. The infeed bed roller drive sprocket can interfere with one of the other sprockets in the feed system as the planer bed is lowered. With careful adjustment its not a problem, but at the extreme of the bed travel there is almost no clearance for the infeed bed roller sprocket. Other than this ***extremely minor*** issue I could find absolutely no compromises in the design of this machine. Its a beast...

Photo 1:

Comments: PM 225 As-recieved
Source: My Camera

Direct Link
IMG Code

Photo 2:

Comments: PM 225 Cleaned and Repainted
Source: My Camera

Direct Link
IMG Code

Photo 3:

Comments: Knife Grinder and Jointer
Source: My Camera

Direct Link
IMG Code