Powermatic 14"BS questions/comments (and my purchase saga including a 54A jointer...)

[Joshua Layne]

I posted a while back that I had ordered a PM PWBS-14 and a PM 54A. They were part of a T-day special and I got (IMOATT - in my opinion at the time) a good deal on them through my local San Carlos Woodcraft, including a free riser block and the PM mobile bases for both.

Then the complications... they were back-ordered (and severely, from what my local woodcraft told me) I talked with Eric (the owner) and he graciously offered loaner machines to tide me over until mine arrived with the option of switching them out or not as I chose. I took him up on his offer and moved the 14" bandsaw and the 6" jointer standing up in the back of a small pickup (I'll drag out the pics at some point...) then slid them down a ramp and into their mobile bases and used them for a couple weeks, at which point I got a call that both machines were in (months earlier than expected for one of them) and what did I want to do? I chose to switch out to the boxed units and Eric was very gracious about the whole thing. I have since (slowly) gotten them together, well mostly...

The jointer was a piece of cake (although not yet used, we'll see), but in putting the bandsaw together, I failed to RTFM and put the carter blade tensioning lever on backwards, which meant that a LOT more force was exerted on the parts and um, well, a couple broke. Powermatic was very good about just sending me the castings that I hamfisted and I had the chance (read as: "stole time from my family") today to put the new parts in. There were some interesting twists, what I thought was a through drive pin was not, it was installed after placement in another part and was impossible to remove without first breaking (more) the casting that was already broken. Much hammering and cursing occurred - vice grips worked best and eventually I had the parts free. After that, it was fairly straightforward and I got everything put back together.

This is where the further problems come in, but first let me make some comments on the tensioning block and upper axle in the PM - they are VERY thin castings as seen below
139572 139573

While I will admit I was ham-fisted, it seems like this piece might warrant a little more robust build.

The upper axle also has a ?centering nut? that threads into the tracking casting around the axle (behind the wheel) - I believe it is anodized aluminum threading into aluminum. (you can see it in the above left photo - the black nut)

QUESTION: is it supposed to be tightened all the way against the casting? or is it supposed to be adjustable to allow for coplanar wheel alignment? It is now stripped, but as it really seems to be nothing more than a spacer for the upper wheel, I am not overly worried about (and I was actually fairly careful with this, after breaking the previous parts... it still stripped) As it seems to be incapable of holding against the outer wheel nut (and may not have been designed to), I cannot get the wheels coplanar - the top wheel is forward of the bottom wheel - I have read the threads that discuss whether this is necessary, I would like to get it closer than it is.

I would appreciate any thoughts on this.

I am still happy with the jointer (so far) but were I to do it over, I would probably buy an old delta 14" over the current powermatic.

TIA,
-josh

[Joshua Layne]

There were some interesting twists, what I thought was a through drive pin was not, it was installed after placement in another part and was impossible to remove without first breaking (more) the casting that was already broken. Much hammering and cursing occurred - vice grips worked best and eventually I had the parts free. After that, it was fairly straightforward and I got everything put back together.

Apparently the JET assembly is sold/replaced as a complete assembly for this exact reason - the PM is not, but Tech Support is (as of this morning) shipping me all of the parts to put a "new" one together



The upper axle also has a ?centering nut? that threads into the tracking casting around the axle (behind the wheel) - I believe it is anodized aluminum threading into aluminum. (you can see it in the above left photo - the black nut)

QUESTION: is it supposed to be tightened all the way against the casting? or is it supposed to be adjustable to allow for coplanar wheel alignment? It is now stripped, but as it really seems to be nothing more than a spacer for the upper wheel, I am not overly worried about (and I was actually fairly careful with this, after breaking the previous parts... it still stripped) As it seems to be incapable of holding against the outer wheel nut (and may not have been designed to)

After talking with tech support this morning, (it took a while, as that hollow bolt does not have its own part number so we talked around it for a while...) that part is not intended to adjust for co-planarity, it is a bushing for the upper wheel shaft to ride in and should be tightened all the way down, so my empirical experience, ham-fisted though it may have been, was at least correct. I do think that a bronze washer would serve well as a shim to help with the coplanarity of the wheels, but I am not going to obsess about it right now.

Anyway, I may be talking to myself with this thread, but there is the off chance that it will help out somebody in the future.

-josh

[Paul Johnstone]

glad it seems to be working out for you.

The nice thing is that once you get it resolved and start cutting wood, experiences like this seem to fade from memory pretty quick.