Woodmaster Planer/Molder Model 408

TBFGhost

I found one of these for sale locally...its an older model with 8" capacity. The price is right and I am looking to go pick it up. I have been using a Hussy in GC's shop for a $1 a foot fee so I am looking to move in house. Anyone have any specs on it. From what I can tell Woodmaster seems to make decent planer/molders.

tccoggs

I have a 718. They are decent machines, but I feel the W&H is a better machine it terms of flexability and setup. While the W&H is limited to narrower profiles, the open throat design lets you run partial profiles and circles as required. Also, the Woodmaster uses single profile blades with counterwights, which means that the feed speeds have to be slower. Can you run multiple knives, yes, but there is no indexing system to make sure the alignment is correct like the W&H has.

Don't get me wrong, I have run a ton of molding with the Woodmaster, but if I could only have 1 machine, it would be the W&H. Yes, the woodmaster is multifunction, but the changeovers are time consuming, so i'd rather have a regular planer anyway, and as for the drum sanding, rubber feed rollers will not work very well with sanding dust, you really need a track feed table like woodmasters dedicated sanding machines use.

TBFGhost

...I saw that they make heads so you can run dual knives....never really thought about indexing them...I was also eyeing up the Shop-Fox knock off of the Hussy...

tccoggs

The ShopFox looks pretty good. I would definetly consider it.