Rojek SP410 planer thicknesser- bought from APTC. Only had it 3-4 months.
Upon unpacking found alot of the bolts holding the machine together were loose, so all of these needed to be tightened. Next i put a straight edge across the surfacing table and found they were set up waaaaaaaaaay out. :roll:
After using the machine for 2-3 days the drive chain snapped (looks like a bicycle chain) Axminster came out later and repaired it (broke a clip that holds the dust hood down in the process) :evil:
After all that hassle thought everything was hunkydory-but no. Next on the list of things to go wrong, was for one of the tersa blades to slide out a little from the block, taking a nice scallop out of the dust hood (was under the impression the tersa system was meant to be the bee's knee's)
Blades dont last half as long as the previous planer (robinson 24 x 9 )
The idea of buying the planer was to upgrade from the older robinson model. It does provide a nice chatter free finish, but needs the blades changing ALOT. Also its up to current H & S which is a bonus.
Almost forgot to mention- The fence on the top for squaring up the timber is very long and
flimsy. So when you think you're holding it square on one point of the fence, further along, you're a mile out. The
MOST annoying thing, besides all the above, is to hold down the surfacing bed, it uses a cam/lever type mechanism. After an hour or so of top and tailing the lever vibrates loose, making real bloody hard work of trying to straighten something up if you dont notice !
All in all, not very impressed with it. For the price of the machine we were expecting a much better quality machine. In the future, think i'd prefer to see the machine up and running instead of just seeing it unwrapped on a pallet.