I purchased the Planer/Thicknesser AC250PT and have been trying for months to get it setup. It had terrible end of board snipe, the tables and knives were well out. I think this was a Friday model.
I have lost faith and patience being able to get this thing setup and really wished I had gone for a different model. Before I call it a day ihoped there might be someone might be able to offer me some guidance.
Using the jig that is supplied I cannot get the knives set equal and parallel across the width of the cutting head. I have even tried to cable tie the jig to the drum to ensure equal pressure. When I measure the amount of travel the knives pull a piece of wood from the outfeed table each knife from the same point on the table measures anything up to 5mm difference. Even if the outfeed table wasn’t Coplnaa to the knives you would expect the knives to have a consistent measurement if the jig is any good.
The manual says to aim for 10mm travel on the wood piece when testing outfeed table and knife height. That cannot be right? To achieve such an amount of travel requires the knives to be higher than the outfeed, adding to the snipe problems. That is a massive gap.
Finally, In a desperate attempt to remedy this I purchased the Axminster vernier jig…the issue here is that you need to know the height required of the knives for this to work and no one in store or at Axminster seem to know.
As it stands all my excitement has been lost and I have a very expensive Chinese copy that is soaking up time rather than me making things.
I hope someone can help before I bin this thing out of frustration.
Hi, I’m afraid I don’t have the requisite knowledge to help you, but based on my experience of dealing with Axminster over a seemingly insoluble problem with one of the machines our Men’s Shed had bought (and another bloke who was having trouble with a different machine), I had to get to the Chief Executive eventually to get the help I needed, and frankly at that point they were brilliant.
I did ask whether anyone monitored the postings from customers about problems and theys aid NO. So, there’s not a great deal of getting professional help from them except via their helpline or by, as I did, going over everyone’s head to the top man.
It may seem unreasonable of me, but since I had been spending money of a group of elderly blokes (and a few women) I felt I had a responsibility to get the machine working properly.
I’m afraid I can help you either, except that everything I bought from Axminster that is their own brand, and made in China, has has some problem…first a table saw with a sliding table that was so inaccurate I ended up just not using it…I spend numerous hours aligning it for it simply to go out of alignment every time I tried to use it… and more recently a dust extractor where I had to modify the body assembly to get the wheels on it to turn so it could be moved…by having to cut scallops out of the metal base…!!
I sympathise with you, as all my comments to Axminster never got so much as ‘sorry for your trouble’… so in future when I buy expensive equipment it won’t be Axminster brands…!! Lesson learnt.
I ended up paying for a local Altendorf service engineer to try and set it up. He had problems and finished by saying it was the best he could do, there was too much play on infeed table and knife block.
When he left I went to use raise the thicknesser tray and it didn’t move, when I opened it I found the rotating handle wasn’t even attached to the lifting mech.
I called Axminster, explained the issues and they agreed to take it back and look at it. They found numerous issues nd agreed to give my money back. I asked if I could pay the difference to upgrade to a trade machine. They agreed and I am far happier.
Once I was in touch with Axminster customer service they managed this situation brilliantly, the collection and delivery drivers were brilliant and did say that they had delivered loads of these units so was surprised by my experience. That said I wasn’t able to find any mention of the unit on the internet. The customer service team couldn’t have been more attentive and understanding.
I am sorry I cannot tell you that I resolved and kept the unit, but I can say that I prefer the trade unit. Such as the table folding away from you instead of towards you, small but big thing day in and day out.
Let me know if I can help with more information if you want it.
Hi Dan,
Can I assume you have seen the video on YouTube, since posting your question, from Axminster regarding the setup of said AC250PT? https://youtu.be/Vv6VUD4sM-A (They use an AT version in the demo but show you the method of measuring the travel in the video). I have the very same AC250PT and I can tell you that 3 or 4mm is the required travel distance, not 10mm.
