Spiral Head Carba-Tec 10" Planer Thicknesser with Cabinet Base AW106PTX

OK bought this one few months ago

Pros
Quiet.. Did I say quiet.. I meant QUIET!!! http://d1r5wj36adg1sk.cloudfront.net...py/biggrin.gif
To put it in perspective
I was planning 50mm wide x 600mm length of solid American Oak, while having normal conversation with person on the other end of the machine
2hp dust collector seems to be noisier than this machine
Leaves very smooth finish.. after planning / thicknessing can start with very fine grit paper straight out
Solid fence (I could read on older posts about this machine all complains about the fence how crappy it is) Well this one is solid steel one.. It weights about 20 odd kg and there is no way it can move or warp. Think manufacturers / carbatec has listened to customer and rectified the issue
Knives have 4 sides (unlike some which have only 2)
When replacing knives, no alignment required as they are keyed in

Cons
Dust collection in planning mode is not that perfect. It collects about 80 -85% of chips but the rest is falling out of pan down to the thicknessing table
The measurement for thicknessing is very rough. I mean dial arrow is about 2mm thick!!! so some fine tunning on that end might be done to rectify this issue
Transforming from planning to thicknessing mode is a bit of work, but then again, it is combination machine... Other brands have developed a bit more user friendly solution for this, but then again, for slightly easier conversion from one mode to another, user will have to fork out at least another $1500 extra. Well I'm quite happy with saving that $1500 and think it is a fair trade off, considering how often does user change from one mode to another.
Replacement blades are super expensive. Considering that the machine uses 74 of them and it cost $87 for a pack of 10, it will cost $643.80 for the whole set, so better start saving straight away. The good thing is, again they are 4 sided blades so you get extra long life out of them.

Conclusion

Well, I'm very happy with the purchase. Machine is very quiet.. It even passed the " let run it at 11:00 at night and see if SWMBO will complain" and she didn't even notice I was running it.WIN!!!
Now that helix (spiral) head. I have carefully checked all spiral heads in all carbatec machines and the head on this combo is different to all of the other ones
for example,
A) blades actually overlap each other thus allowing the use of all 4 sides (some of their helical heads do not have such overlap)
B) blades are at slight angle, allowing the machine to actually slice material rather than chipping it at straight angle.

I was a bit worried about motor capacity as it is only 1.5HP, but machine has managed to thickness full 250mm width of solid American oak, while taking 2.5 mm off at the time with no problem whatsoever.

Also machine came in full chipboard crate, fully bolted to it, meaning no damages in transport

Additionally to the purchase of the machine I have bought mobile base allowing me to move machine to the side while it is not in use.
Another additional purchase was the metal detector. Having a look at the replacement blades, I think spending $14 on an metal detector from ebay will definitely be worthy investment and it has already repaid itself by finding hidden broken nail in some recycled timber... so very highly recommended

I agree with everything you have mentioned. My Men's shed picked one of these up this year, they seemed to be quite good value and the ability of the planer is very good, the ability of the reducing system is excellent, and I mean excellent.

As for quietness and power, yep, the 1,119 W motor seems to have enough power. The noise, or lack thereof is fantastic, our 1,491W dusty makes more noise.

The stuff we push through this machine is mind boggling at times, either under to reduce, or on top to plane.

Our four sided blades still don't require any changes, so far so good. Compared to what we had before, it's quiet as a Church mouse, planes so well that in some instances with what the timber is going to be used for, no other finishing is required, read no sanding.

Now if I could have one of these in my shed I'd be laughing, one day .................. :C

Mick.

I also purchased one of these ... I am happy with the results .... but the instructions are woeful .... thank goodness for Youtube

I still have got problems with the fence as I cant get it 100% square over the length of the table ... so I am finisishing with the No4 hand plane for fine pieces ... or using the table saw

Quiet ... yes defiantly ... the 2hp dusty is 91Db the J/P is 80Db when running and 85Db when munching wood.

Th

I recently purchased the Axminister depth cut meter
Attachment 336246

....See https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...fdoSbcHA#t=604 at the 10 minute mark ... Cost 31.79 pound (inc 11 pound postage) http://static.axminster.co.uk/media/.../950686_xl.jpg ... I fitted it today .... and it is very accurate indeed and can now be confident that I have repeatable thicknesses

I dressed 40M of 25 year old Oregon beams and the result was fabulous ... just do all the jointing first and then the thicknessing another day.

The spiral head cutter is very good ... and gives a finished result

Regards

Rob

have the thicknesser very smooth finish not a true spiral head but still good. Blades are a costly issue you can source them from overseas quite a lot cheaper and four sided.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Prle77

OK bought this one few months ago

Pros
Quiet.. Did I say quiet.. I meant QUIET!!! http://d1r5wj36adg1sk.cloudfront.net...py/biggrin.gif
To put it in perspective
I was planning 50mm wide x 600mm length of solid American Oak, while having normal conversation with person on the other end of the machine
2hp dust collector seems to be noisier than this machine
Leaves very smooth finish.. after planning / thicknessing can start with very fine grit paper straight out
Solid fence (I could read on older posts about this machine all complains about the fence how crappy it is) Well this one is solid steel one.. It weights about 20 odd kg and there is no way it can move or warp. Think manufacturers / carbatec has listened to customer and rectified the issue
Knives have 4 sides (unlike some which have only 2)
When replacing knives, no alignment required as they are keyed in

Cons
Dust collection in planning mode is not that perfect. It collects about 80 -85% of chips but the rest is falling out of pan down to the thicknessing table
The measurement for thicknessing is very rough. I mean dial arrow is about 2mm thick!!! so some fine tunning on that end might be done to rectify this issue
Transforming from planning to thicknessing mode is a bit of work, but then again, it is combination machine... Other brands have developed a bit more user friendly solution for this, but then again, for slightly easier conversion from one mode to another, user will have to fork out at least another $1500 extra. Well I'm quite happy with saving that $1500 and think it is a fair trade off, considering how often does user change from one mode to another.
Replacement blades are super expensive. Considering that the machine uses 74 of them and it cost $87 for a pack of 10, it will cost $643.80 for the whole set, so better start saving straight away. The good thing is, again they are 4 sided blades so you get extra long life out of them.

Conclusion

Well, I'm very happy with the purchase. Machine is very quiet.. It even passed the " let run it at 11:00 at night and see if SWMBO will complain" and she didn't even notice I was running it.WIN!!!
Now that helix (spiral) head. I have carefully checked all spiral heads in all carbatec machines and the head on this combo is different to all of the other ones
for example,
A) blades actually overlap each other thus allowing the use of all 4 sides (some of their helical heads do not have such overlap)
B) blades are at slight angle, allowing the machine to actually slice material rather than chipping it at straight angle.

I was a bit worried about motor capacity as it is only 1.5HP, but machine has managed to thickness full 250mm width of solid American oak, while taking 2.5 mm off at the time with no problem whatsoever.

Also machine came in full chipboard crate, fully bolted to it, meaning no damages in transport

Additionally to the purchase of the machine I have bought mobile base allowing me to move machine to the side while it is not in use.
Another additional purchase was the metal detector. Having a look at the replacement blades, I think spending $14 on an metal detector from ebay will definitely be worthy investment and it has already repaid itself by finding hidden broken nail in some recycled timber... so very highly recommended

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Very good review and agree with everything you have said.
I have owned my machine for over year and love pretty much everything about it for the price.

Carba-tec is not the place to go for the replacement cutters, they can be bought online for less than half that and I also have the contact information for the factorymin China that makes the actual cutter-head and thinks he sells the cutters for about $2.50 each.

I MANAGED TO GO THROUGH ALL FOUR CUTTING FACES ON MINE AND TOOK THEM ALL OUT AND RESHARPENED THEM BY HAND BY GIVING EACH ONE 100 LICKS OVER A DIAMOND PLATE ON THE FLAT SURFACE OF THE INSERT. THEY ARE AS GOOD AS NEW!
TOOK ABOUT 2 HOURS BUT WAS WELL WORTH THE EFFORT.

MOST INTERSTINGLY CARBA-TEC'S OTHER SO CALLED SPIRAL HEADS ARE NOT,THEY ONLY HAVE A SPIRAL GROOVE MILLED IN THE HEAD THE INSERTS ARE NOT OFFSET AND DO NOT SHEAR ACROSS TIMBER AS THIS MACHINE DOES.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Prle77

OK bought this one few months ago

Pros
Quiet.. Did I say quiet.. I meant QUIET!!! http://d1r5wj36adg1sk.cloudfront.net...py/biggrin.gif
To put it in perspective
I was planning 50mm wide x 600mm length of solid American Oak, while having normal conversation with person on the other end of the machine
2hp dust collector seems to be noisier than this machine
Leaves very smooth finish.. after planning / thicknessing can start with very fine grit paper straight out
Solid fence (I could read on older posts about this machine all complains about the fence how crappy it is) Well this one is solid steel one.. It weights about 20 odd kg and there is no way it can move or warp. Think manufacturers / carbatec has listened to customer and rectified the issue
Knives have 4 sides (unlike some which have only 2)
When replacing knives, no alignment required as they are keyed in

Cons
Dust collection in planning mode is not that perfect. It collects about 80 -85% of chips but the rest is falling out of pan down to the thicknessing table
The measurement for thicknessing is very rough. I mean dial arrow is about 2mm thick!!! so some fine tunning on that end might be done to rectify this issue
Transforming from planning to thicknessing mode is a bit of work, but then again, it is combination machine... Other brands have developed a bit more user friendly solution for this, but then again, for slightly easier conversion from one mode to another, user will have to fork out at least another $1500 extra. Well I'm quite happy with saving that $1500 and think it is a fair trade off, considering how often does user change from one mode to another.
Replacement blades are super expensive. Considering that the machine uses 74 of them and it cost $87 for a pack of 10, it will cost $643.80 for the whole set, so better start saving straight away. The good thing is, again they are 4 sided blades so you get extra long life out of them.

Conclusion

Well, I'm very happy with the purchase. Machine is very quiet.. It even passed the " let run it at 11:00 at night and see if SWMBO will complain" and she didn't even notice I was running it.WIN!!!
Now that helix (spiral) head. I have carefully checked all spiral heads in all carbatec machines and the head on this combo is different to all of the other ones
for example,
A) blades actually overlap each other thus allowing the use of all 4 sides (some of their helical heads do not have such overlap)
B) blades are at slight angle, allowing the machine to actually slice material rather than chipping it at straight angle.

I was a bit worried about motor capacity as it is only 1.5HP, but machine has managed to thickness full 250mm width of solid American oak, while taking 2.5 mm off at the time with no problem whatsoever.

Also machine came in full chipboard crate, fully bolted to it, meaning no damages in transport

Additionally to the purchase of the machine I have bought mobile base allowing me to move machine to the side while it is not in use.
Another additional purchase was the metal detector. Having a look at the replacement blades, I think spending $14 on an metal detector from ebay will definitely be worthy investment and it has already repaid itself by finding hidden broken nail in some recycled timber... so very highly recommended

---

I bought one of these recently from another forum member and finally got to use it in anger today. The results were impressive, better than I could have hoped for and a real step up from my previous set up of bladed planer and bench top thicky. So much less effort required, heaps less noise and superior finish on both soft and hard woods. Cant see this machine leaving home any time soon thats for sure.

I'm thinking about buying this model too as it's really the only thing around it seems that's fairly good quality but at a price that doesn't break the bank, but can anyone confirm the number of cutters for the spiral head version, I've seen 74 listed here and on CT's site, along with a very confusing "Spiral - 48 insert k" on CT's site for the cutterhead, but that doesn't divide evenly into anything, unless rows have different numbers of cutters? And has anyone found a cheaper supplier for cutter?

Also, how is everyone finding the table alignment with swapping to thicknesser mode and back, does it stay in alignment or does it need to be tweaked each time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aarggh

I'm thinking about buying this model too as it's really the only thing around it seems that's fairly good quality but at a price that doesn't break the bank, but can anyone confirm the number of cutters for the spiral head version, I've seen 74 listed here and on CT's site, along with a very confusing "Spiral - 48 insert k" on CT's site for the cutterhead, but that doesn't divide evenly into anything, unless rows have different numbers of cutters? And has anyone found a cheaper supplier for cutter?

Also, how is everyone finding the table alignment with swapping to thicknesser mode and back, does it stay in alignment or does it need to be tweaked each time.

---

Hi Aarggh
Definitely 74 knives...
Conversion from planer to thicknesser and back doesn't seem to affect the allignment... I mean I didn't really measure anything as such but the end result seem good..I get straight 90 deg sides..

Now for cheaper blades.. yes they are around but you have to be careful which one you're getting.. We need ones with a slightly curved edge.. but i'm not sure whether it is 100 deg or 150 deg.... If anyone knows exactly which one it is would be great... I think it is 150 deg but not sure...

Thanks for that info!

I see SJE Tools has a number of cutters that may possibly be suitable. Although with 4 sides and carbide, the existing cutters will last me a fair while based on the wear from the HSS blades on my old Makita thicknesser:

http://www.sje-tools.com/collections...knives-inserts

It's a bit of a mine field out there as I've found, I was looking at the Jet JPT 260 that was quite a bit more and straight knives, but they list it as 10A while it has a 15A socket. Another combo I looked at was the Woodman 310, and while they look great, I couldn't find a single review or link on them.

http://www.wwwh.com.au/webshop/EWWIt...C150098%7C%7C7

The Carbatec (Axminster) AW106PTZ looks great value and on Axminsters site has great reviews, but I would have loved the plates lifting as one piece like with the Woodman or the Jet. But they are both around $1000 more and need a 15A feed, although the lady at Woodworking Warehouse said she runs the Woodman 310 off a 10A circuit/breaker fine.

I'm thinking it might be worth hanging out for the Working With Wood Show, as I'm assuming there'll be discounts on machinery sales there?

Has anyone else bought one of these more recently? I'm wondering if I can save up and get this as my first machine. It works out the same or cheaper than the separate machines I was considering and it would suit my small shed.
Hence I have been hunting for any more recent reviews tgan this thread.

I came awfully close to biting the bullet on one of these from Carbatec, but they had the special for the woodworking show on so I ended up getting the Jet instead. If it wasn't for that I would have definitely have bought the AW model, although I really wasn't too keen on the way the tables lifted.

I don't think there's any alternative if the Jet is out of reach though anyway, and they do have great reviews.

cheers, Ian

There is this option as well
https://www.gregmach.com/product/10-...-helical-head/

That Woodman looks very easy to change over and hopefully keep things co planer.
I wonder if it is the same as a Jet 260?

Then there is also a 250mm combination machine from Ledacraft.

So 3 similar options within roughly $200 of each other.
There aren't many current reviews of any of them.

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Search for Woodfast - very similar if not the same as Woodman.