Powermatic 1791296 Model 209 20-Inch 5 Horsepower Planer, 230-Volt 1 Phase

I am writing this review to tell you not to buy this planer without getting the helical carbide Byrd cutterhead. Apparently Amazon doesn't sell it with this option, but do not let that sway your decision. This is a fine machine, and plenty powerful. The Byrd cutterhead reduces the noise by half. Seriously, half. Even while you are planing... the noise reduction is unbelievable. It also produces a vastly superior planed surface. No more clogging of the dust collection by long, stringy maple. Just fast, quiet production of near perfect lumber. No tearout even on curly maple (you do have to take light passes though ;). You can even plane end grain without worry (like a butcher block). You'll never have to shut down production to have you knives sharpened. I rotated all 120+ knives in half an hour (including disconnecting the dust collection and removing the upper cover) just to see how long it would take. Normally you should only have to rotate 2 or 3 if they get nicked by something other than wood. I also like the solid cast wings, though some reviewers apparently had rust issues.
It does piss me off that I can't get the digital thickness gauge that comes on the 15" planer. It will probably come out next year and all the people who took the risk with this new design get screwed.
The integrated wheels are a very nice touch, although mine sits in one place. It was easy to get this #800 monster off the pallet and into place.
The 28 amp motor is serious power, and the nature of helical cutterheads requires less power to cut the same amount of wood (smaller area of contact at a time). Even dense exotic wood poses no problems for this machine. It is all I've ever wanted in a planer.

This tool has lived up to every expectation. The powermatic tech support is great. I would suggest using the e-mail support for any warranty claims as the phone line seems to be very busy. The planer arrived in perfect condition in a very sturdy crate. It was in good adjustment. I have made some minor adjustments to the bed rollers. It was very easy to do. I haven't adusted or replaced the knives yet. If you can afford it definetly go for the shelix cutterhead. The dust collection hood isn't set up for flex hose but just add a ridgid 45 and it works great. The motor is very strong I haven't had it bog down with anything including quartersawn oak. I don't think I would recommend this machine if you are looking for a "finish planer" if one exists. This machine is made for making rough sawn lumber smooth not making planed lumber smoother. The only thing I would add is to make the cast iron wings collapsable so it could take up less room when not in use, but then I wouldn't need to buy a bigger shop.

Every thing went great, the delivery was very fast. The machine works great !! Thanks !!

After reading a few reviews here, I can understand some of the dissapointments.
We received our planer in good condition and did need to fine tune some of the settings. We consider this fairly normal however. The one problem we experienced out the gate though was that a chip deflector broke from it's weld and fell into the knife head. Since we purchase this unit from a large dealership, Powermatic shipped all the needed replacement parts immediately. Unfortunately, our several hours of labor required to fix the unit were not covered. Not a big surprise though.
If you are a serious woodworker or have a medium or larger shop, I would highly recommend replacing the cutter head with the one offered by Byrd Tool as we did.
The results were more than like night and day. We have had the same knives in the planer for almost 6 months and have yet to change or adjust them. Extremely quiet, vertually no tear out or chatter. Powermatic used to offer this head with a few select machines. We will use this new head design on all our joiners and planers.

the first unit arrived in terrible condition. It was not securred to the pallet and the crating was not designed to ship something of this weight. Amazon went above and beyond when it came to replacing the unit. I received the second unit with less damage but still not an up to standard shipping crate. This time Amazon sent the replacement parts and the unit is a hungry working monster. I love it. A little rust on one of the infeed conveyors. Amazon is king when it comes to something of this size. I was nervous ordering machinery of this magnitude. I would and will buy from Amazon again.