Australian Wood Review – June 2019

8 Australian Wood Review

TOOLS & EQUIPMENT

These 300mm planer/thicknessers are

both made in the same factory. With a

price difference of only $300 it quickly

became evident that this was an exercise

in identifying the differences between

what are near-identical machines.

The heritage of these machines is

obvious, with immediate comparisons

to most other 300mm combinations

already out there. Both have helical

cutterheads with four rows each of 14

carbide insert cutters, which produced

extremely clean finished surfaces on

some tightly curled Queensland maple

used for testing the machine. The

resulting surface was also sufficiently flat

to indicate that the tables were correctly

aligned at the factory for both machines.

Rikon 25-210H and Woodfast PT310A

Planer/Thicknessers

Reviewed by Damion Fauser

$ (^4299)
Both cutterheads are 70mm in
diameter and have the same mass, so
the only difference in the geometry or
physics of the cutting action of these
tools is the rpms: the Woodfast turns
at 5500rpm, the Rikon at 5000rpm. For
this diameter cutterhead this difference
is cosmetic only in my opinion.
A 3.3hp/15amp motor powers the
Rikon while the Woodfast has a
3hp/15amp motor, so either would
need a 15 amp circuit installed
for home users. Both motors are
sufficiently powerful for almost any
task that this machine would be asked
to perform. I find the surface grind
on the tables of most comparable
machines on the market to be
somewhat disappointing, so I was
pleasantly surprised to find a good
quality grind on both machines, with
the Rikon having a slight advantage.
The jointer tables on both were a
respectable 1409mm in length, the
safety guards were both the Euro-style
and both machines had an identically-
sized aluminium extrusion fence that
was nice and straight along its length.
I found the camlocking system on the
fence angle adjustment a little clumsy
and it was difficult to lock the fence at
the angle that I wanted, but thankfully
both had adjustable positive stops to
assist in this regard. With persistence
one could get it right but I’d be
reluctant to be changing it too often.
Infeed table depth adjustment was
similar, as was the ability to flip
the safety guard out of the way if
required. I thought the stop/off switch
of the Rikon was a little better –
being proud of its housing you can
activate it with a knee bump. Both
machines have standard 100mm dust
ports which, when connected to the
decent extractor provided for testing,
meant there was very little waste not
captured at the source.
Similar in most ways, Rikon 25-210h and
Woodfast PT310A combination planer/
thicknessers.

1. On/off switches. The Rikon switch
   sits proud of the body, meaning you
   can activate the stop button with a
   knee bump.


2. The cam-lock fence angle adjustment
   was a little awkward to operate.

1

2

$^3999