PM 66 need advice fast

[Mark Versprille]

In the next hour I'm going to look at a used PM 66. I don't know the age or condition. What should I be looking for? I've never bought a used TS so any hints would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Cary Falk]

I am no expert but I did buy a used Uni about 2 years ago. I thought I looked it over pretty good but therey were a couple of things that I did not catch. You need to pull the top and check all of the castings for cracks and breaks. Make sure all of the cranks move freely. If they don't it may be that they are just gunked up with sawdust. Make sure the motor runs. Check that the table isn't warped and relative flat. Listen for any squeeling of bearings. Check for blade wobble to indicate problem with the arbor. Is this plug'n'play or project tool?

[glenn bradley]

Take a straight edge and check the top. It doesn't have to be perfect (it may not be setup well) but any deep valley or obnoxious hills will haunt you forever. The blade should raise and lower as well as tilt smoothly. The motor should not give off any sounds of a cat fight in a microwave.

If you are going to get really specific, a base and dial indicator would allow you to check arbor runout. A go/no-go test would be to just grab the arbor and tug back and forth; there should be no play.

Cracks in mounting areas that might indicate a drop, bent fence or fence rails and that sort of thing are pretty obvious if you look. More than one ham-handed wood-butcher has moved his saw by the fence rails and tweaked them.
Do a rip cut, although a poorly setup saw that is otherwise fine could perform badly here. The setup is not as important to me as anything that would keep the saw from being properly setup. Good luck.

P.s. If you pull the top, pay careful attention to which washers go where; they are shims and will need to be returned to the place from whence they came or you will have a setup nightmare on your hands.

[CPeter James]

Check that it is single phase unless you have access to 3 phase. You can tell the age by the first two numbers of the serial number. What is the price?

[Mark Versprille]

Just talked to the guy and it's 3 phase, and I have single phase power. As I understand it that would mean I lose 1/3 of the motors power out put and possibly the motor would not self start. @ $600 would it be worth it ?

[Kirk Poore]

Just talked to the guy and it's 3 phase, and I have single phase power. As I understand it that would mean I lose 1/3 of the motors power out put and possibly the motor would not self start. @ $600 would it be worth it ?

Assuming the rest of the saw is in good condition, yes. But DON'T get a static phase converter--that's where you lose the horsepower. You should be able to get a VFD (variable frequency device) to convert single phase 240V to three phase 240V. A 3 hp one is about $200:
http://www.factorymation.com/s.nl/it.A/id.198/.f

That will give you a first-rate saw for $800.

Kirk