So I'm thinking of diving into the Powermatic 209 20" planer.
The planer with straight knives is $2,900.
The planer with a Shelix head is $4,400.
I can buy the Shelix head for $984 from Byrd.
What gives? Why am I spending around $500 for Powermatic to install the head, which I found pretty easy to do myself on the Dewalt 735?
Is it that hard to install the Powermatic? Also, since the knives must come "factory" sharp, as a hobbiest, I could run the planer for a few years before the knives dull and then hit up the wallet for the knives later.
Just a suggestion but you might consider finding a planer with a Tersa head. Local to me a few of the shops have spiral heads and they are not the easiest thing to live with. Chipping a tooth usually means turning all of them (on 20" wide planer, thats a lot of turning) and the knives are carbide without much choice given. I priced out replacement knives to the tune of $650/set for a 16" planer.
Tersa, by comparison uses HSS, M42 or Carbide and a set of HSS knives, which leave a beautiful finish, is about $60. You they have two sides and so you'd have to wear out the knives 20 times before catching up to the pricing of one set of carbides.
Changing them is an operation which takes approximately 1 minute, not the entire afternoon.
Chipping a tooth usually means turning all of them (on 20" wide planer, thats a lot of turning) and the knives are carbide without much choice given.
That is not the case, in my experience, Brian. Chip a tooth and simply turn that specific carbide insert face. This takes 1 minute to unscrew, turn, and replace.
I have spiral blades on my Hammer A3-31 combo, and had a wonderful experience with the machine and its performance over the past 5 years. Changing an insert is a quick and effortless procedure. The entire set of inserts have been turned once in this time, and two individual inserts also required being turned when they chipped.
I could have had Tersa heads when I purchased the machine, and I am so pleased I went with the silent, spiral blades.
Or you could get the planer with the straight knives as is, and change to the Dispo-A-Blade system. I did that on my 12" jointer/planer machine and knife changes are a breeze. Double sided for twice the life out of one blade, and the self-set feature sure beats the heck out of setting the straight knives.
My 12" set of replacement blades are around $55.00; just to give you an idea of cost.
I have a 20" stationary planer with the carbide inserted spiral head, I also have an 8" joiner with the same style head.
First I have had 1 or 2 inserts chip on my planer (caused by a loose knot coming out and jamming into the head). It took me 20 minutes to rotate the insert (most of the time was disassembling the covers) and I was running again.
As far as cost you are comparing a full set of inserts against 1 sharpening of a blade set. The carbide insert has 4 sides so does not need replacement until all 4 are chipped or dulled and I would expect from my experience with my old equipment with tool steel blades, the Tersa steel blades would have to be sharpened at least 5 to 15 times before the carbide inserts would dull on one side.
I have no experience with the Tersa knives but when I looked on the web Most are made of tool steel, they do make carbide blades but the pricing at $140 per blade X 4 or $560) is comparable to a full set of 140 inserts at $3.00 each or $430 (comparing for a 20" planer). However if I chip an insert I can rotate it 3 more times. If the Tersa blade is chipped the entire blade must be changed or all blade reground. The working life of tool steel is far inferior to carbide. I have ran many hundreds of feet of wood through my machines with no noticeable dulling or change in quality of wood finish.
Granted tool steel can be sharpened to a finer edge than carbide, but after very few minutes of use the edge is not as good as carbide and it continues to dull way faster than carbide. Rotating or replacing the carbide inserts is extremely easy. I do use a torque screwdriver to tighten, but that is not required.
Like the Tersa there is no "setting" of the height so once the inserts are rotated or replaced the machine is ready to use.
As far as quality of cut, I have ran many different wood types through my planer and joiner and NEVER had tear-out even in gnarly woods. I have actually ran a completed frame through the planer (cross cutting the end pieces) without any tear-out.
The last issue is that the Tersa blades do not cut with a shearing action like the carbide, they cut just like any of the old conventional planers. The shearing action of the spiral blades (inserted or not) has been proven to produce a much better finish than the straight blades.
When I purchased my 20" stationary planer the distributor did not have the Byrd head in stock. Byrd was backlogged at the time so the distributor offered to send me the planer with the straight blades and send the Byrd head as soon as it was available at the same cost. I accepted and received and used the planer for a few weeks before the new head was received.
This has been a few years ago so going by my (somewhat poor) memory I recall my son and I changed out the head in about 4 hours. This was being very careful as it was our first experience even removing a planer head! We had no issues and ran the planer that afternoon.
The Byrd head did come with the bearings installed so no bearing pulling or pressing. I still have the old head in a wooden crate in my shop covered with protective grease.
I forgot how loud the 735 was with the straight heads, so that the "silent" comment alone is making me lean to getting the spiral head earlier rather than later. Glad to hear it is no problem to install.