Woodtek Equipment

[Scott Cudmore]

Hi,

I have been looking at Planer/Molders and I have not seen a lot around. I called all the local stores and no one seems to cary them. So, I bought a Jet 13" Planer/Molder. I guess it was my bad luck, but I had to bring it back twice to get repaired in the first few weeks. Belts defective, bad gears, etc. I brought i back becuase I spent over $800 on a lemon.

So, I started to look more. I checked out Grizzley, they are 95% the sme for the 13" planer/molder. I know this becuase I had the Jet apart many times and read the manual over-and-over and over. The Grizzley manual is almost exact, just a few knobs are differnt and a differnt dust shute.

After all this, I look at Sears, they seem to made by Palmgren, both in the

15" range. Sears is out of stock though.

Woodtek seems have a nicely priced unit, but I have not seen a lot of "press" or much information on them. Does anyone know? I already have a Ridgid planer and I want one with more power and dual speeds becuase I have a lot of Hard Maple to plane from a tree I had milled.

Scott

[Mark & Juanita]

Can't help you with the planer molder. Woodtek is Woodworker Supply's house brand. It is a Taiwanise import, built to WWS quality standards. I have the 3 hp shaper and have been pleased with it. Also have a Woodtek dust collector and have likewise not had any major issues with it either. Another company, Bridgewood, sells the cosmetically same equipment, don't know about the quality standards of the internals. FWIW and YMMV

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Steve Johnson]

Hey Scott,

If you are willing to spend more money I have a woodmaster 12" planer molder that does one heck of a job and would not hesitate to recommend it. A friend of mine has a Belsaw planer that is almost identical to it except for that it is more difficult to change from planing to molding and does not have the variable feed rate that the woodmaster does. It is a fine machine also. The thing that I like about both of these machines is the 5hp drive motor. Either of these will run one board after the other all day and not overheat. That is really important if you have a lot of rough lumber that you want to plane.

Have a Ball, Steve

[Dave Hall]

For the price I think the equipment is OK. However, the long term support is horrible. I purchased a 1994 3 hp shaper at a tech school auction. It works fine but is missing some parts. It is virtually impossible to get parts for this and Woodworkers Supply is of no help. They changed suppliers and, apparently, kept no parts stock at all. They couldn't even get me a specific manual or a parts diagram for that model.

Dave Hall

[Mike Berger]