pm 2700 reviews

[jim mills]

Anyone have experience, opinions, rumors, etc. about the pm2700 shaper? I have an opportunity to pick up a near new one for a really good price. I checked the Amazon reviews and they are pretty bad, but are not always the most reliable reviews.

[Paul McGaha]

Jim,

Suggest you search this forum for PM 2700.

Lots of threads.

Looked very positive to me.

PHM

[jim mills]

Thanks Paul, just found comments on dust collection, and getting down stairs. I'm more concerned with things like the fence, table flatness, spindles being true, etc. Also interested if anyone spins router bits in their shaper and how they perform at 10,000 rpm

[Tom Hintz]

I have a review of this shaper at the link below.

Visit Tom’s profile for a link to his home page and tool reviews.


I and a few people I know have tried router bits in a shaper but they just do not have the speed for anything but the biggest router bits and then the performance is marginal because you are working at the bottom end of usuallyualy RPM range for those bits. The problem there is that those were the very bits we wantedreplacepace with the power of a shaper.

[Jeff Monson]

Jim I had a PM2700 for a little over a year. I looked at alot of shapers and the PM has great fit and finish. The fence is awesome, micro adjustable from both sides, super easy to set and adjust. My table was super flat and had a great finish on it also. Running router bits on this machine is kind of like putting sanding drums on a drill press...it gets the job done, but its not really the specialty of the machine. I ran a panel raiser bit and that did work well, but anything smaller the rpm's just were too low. I loved the built in mobile base, that worked very well also, when its lowered the shaper aint going anywhere. I miss the heck out of that shaper, I have a shaper/saw combo now. I think all the research I did here on SMC was nothing but positive, also Tom Hintz's review is well worth watching.

[Randy Henry]

Jim, I have had one for over a year also, and got used from a guy that used it to make 4 false beams for a house, didn't even know how to change the spindles. It is a beast and I would buy it again, but several things you might want to do are: put blue locktite on the motor pulley set screws (2) and the set screws in the handwheels. As far as the dust collection lower port, I found if I put the spacers below the cutter instead of on top, it lowers the plate which allows the port to be fully open, just a little trial and error. Table is flat, no vibrations, and fit-finish is top notch. I would make sure you get the 5hp unit, as they have 3hp units that are identical that would be underpowered for such a large based machine with 1 1/4 spindle.

[jim mills]

Thanks for the replies. After reading the amazon reviews, I was quite concerned mostly about the fence.

[Randy Henry]

The fence is just as good as the rest of the machine. The only problem I had was operator error. After loosening up the knobs to slide the fence out, I accidently moved one too far and it fell to the floor. I fixed that by putting in a screw inside the fence, out of view, to prevent that from happening again.