“I started out as a carpenter, building houses in the late 1970’s and 80’s. 23 years ago, I was building a new house and I quoted out the trim. At the same time, I saw Woodmaster Planers advertised and realized I could buy a Woodmaster Planer for the same price as the trim. That’s when I bought my Woodmaster. I made the trim myself and kept the planer.

Over time, I’ve evolved from a carpenter building houses to a fine woodworker making all kinds of cabinetry, furniture, windows, doors, and trim.

Historically-accurate reproductions of doors built in the early 1800’s

I’m a superintendent for a big construction company so I do my woodworking nights and weekends. I mostly make historic reproduction doors and trim. A while ago, the construction company I work for had a job at a college. It required recreating a solid oak door 3’ x 8’ x 3” thick with a wood frame, raised panels, and side lights. I said I’d build it. The college, Allegheny College,  in Meadville, Pennsylvania, is over 200 years old. So the door I reproduced was at least that old.

That was the first real historic reproduction job I’d done and it kind of kicked off my woodworking business. I went on to make more and more historic reproduction doors and trim for that college. Now I’ve made doors and trim for six buildings at that school.

And I’m still doing work for Allegheny College. I’m making all the reproduction trim for one of their buildings. To do that job, I just ordered $4,000 worth of stock molding knives from Woodmaster. On one of their floors, the casing for the doors is 3-1/2” thick and 9” wide.

It takes three different profile knives to reproduce this molding. On other floors, the molding’s all different. There’s some built-up molding that takes two molding patterns. Reproducing some of the trim takes 5 different knives. And then there are different size plinth blocks and rosettes, and more.

Another project was for Cambridge Springs Museum and History Center in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. I made them a 48-pane window as part of their historic renovation project.

Making trim for a $14,000,000 historic renovation project

My woodworking business is growing, some of it through the construction company I work for. They won a bid on a $14,000,000 historic renovation project and I got the job to do all the trim. I just ordered 10,000 board feet of poplar lumber for that one!

Historic reproduction job? Harvey’s the guy they call

I’m in a niche market – historic reproductions, doors and trim. When someone needs this kind of work, I’m the guy they call. Most of my business is by word of mouth and some of it is through my webpage.

My historic renovation business is growing and there’s a lot of work coming my way. It just seems to come. If you put out good work, your name gets out there. A good job probably gets you three more jobs. Of course, if you mess up, you don’t get more!

“Work at it with your whole being”

The Bible says, I think it’s in Colossians, ‘Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being, for the Lord and not for men.’ That’s what I do, and I try to do the best work I can.

I got a Woodmaster Planer in the first place because I start with rough cut wood. It’s very expensive to go to the lumberyard and buy S4S oak (surfaced on four sides) at $6 a board foot. Rough sawn oak is $2.30 a board foot, or one-third the cost of S4S. So I turn rough cut into S4S with my Woodmaster. That’s where some of the profit is.

Original belt — 23 years and still going strong

I’ve used my Woodmaster all these years. The only thing I’ve replaced in 23 years is the belt for the feed roller bed. The original belt for the planer head is still on it, still working great after 23 years!

“I use all 4 Woodmaster functions – planer, molder, sander, saw”

I chose Woodmaster because it does everything – planing, molding, sanding, and gang-sawing. It’s hard to beat a gang ripsaw for production. I use all Woodmaster’s four functions, though I now have a stand-alone sander, too. When I started out, I had few tools and I liked that Woodmaster did it all.

Buying the mid-sized Woodmaster model was an economic decision. In hindsight, I wish I’d bought the 25” 725 model. But I bought what I could afford at the time.

‘Full bead’ 3/4 round molding in one pass

Right now, I’m looking at Woodmaster’s 4-side molding machine. I’m not ready to buy, but I like the idea of making ‘full bead’ molding in one pass. On the job I’m doing now, there’s a lot of ‘full bead,’ or 3/4 round molding. With a 4-side machine, you can put a workpiece through one pass and be done. That saves time. And saving time means you make more money.

Woodmaster makes a great molder/planer and their service is very good. When I order molding knives, I always have them within a week. On my $4,000 molding knife order, they said it would take two weeks. I told them I could get started right away if I had one of the knives. They sent it right out and I had it in three days.”

— Harvey Peterson, Woodmaster Molder/Planer Owner, Meadville PA

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“My wife wanted our home remodeled. I DEMOLISHED & REBUILT. My Woodmaster played a key role in all the finish work. And it paid for itself three times over on this one project.”

“For many years, my wife and I traveled all over the USA working for a huge construction company. We were both Construction Superintendents in the heavy duty side of construction – power plants, nuclear plants, and more. In 2011, we bought our 45-acre retirement hobby farm so we’d have a place to call home. I retired two years ago and, bless her heart, my wife’s still working.

The farm came with a farmhouse and my wife wanted it remodeled. What I did was more demolish and rebuild, rather than remodel. The structure had been pieced together over the years and had a pavilion-style truss roof over the whole thing. I basically demolished the old house, left the roof, and built our new home under it.

I wanted to make the trim, casing, and tongue and groove flooring

When it came time to rebuild, I knew I wanted to make most of the trim, molding, and tongue and groove flooring in our new home so I researched woodworking machines. I’d done hobby woodworking all my life. I never did it to earn a living but I always enjoyed it. You pick up things as you go. I saw all the things a Woodmaster Planer could do and I bought the 25”model with a Pro Pack, 3-Side Molding System, C2 Molding Head, and Spiral Cutterhead.

I made most of our casing, molding, flooring, and wood paneling from trees I cut on our land. Sycamore, beech, poplar, red oak, and white oak. I started harvesting trees over three years ago. We cut and hauled about twenty loads of logs to a local sawmill. Then we hauled the rough cut lumber back, stickered and stacked it in our pole barn to air dry. Then I built a solar powered kiln to bring the wood from 12.5% moisture content down to 7.3%.

Some of the beams are solid pine. Others are steel cased in pine. I decided to use real wood paneling instead of sheetrock – wood looks better. The mantle is an old cross-tie I pulled out of our pasture where it was used as a fence corner post.

It’s a 4-in-1 planer, gang rip saw, drum sander, and molder

The Woodmaster and its attachments were the central part of the finishing phase of building our home. This machine has been essential. It does everything I want and more.

I planed our rough cut lumber to the right thickness with the Woodmaster set up as a planer. Then I set it up as a Gang Rip Saw and ripped it to the right width. Then I set it up as a drum sander and sanded all the casing. And I made our molding by setting up the machine as a Molder.

For most of our flooring, I planed hardwood, ripped it, sanded it, and shaped the tongue and groove with the 3-Side Molding System. In one pass with that attachment system, I cut the tongue, the groove, and the back relief.

4 functions in 1 machine – excellent in every function

Just to be clear, I did have some hesitancy before I bought the Woodmaster. I’d had a Shopsmith V and found it did a few things well but there were a lot of things it did not do well. I wondered if the 4-in-1 Woodmaster would be like that – do just one or two functions well and the others not so well. But I can tell you it does an excellent job in every function – molding, planing, ripping, sanding. The design and engineering behind every function is excellent. They didn’t skimp on anything. I give it a 9.5 or a 10. It’s an excellent machine. Very well built.

Woodmaster paid for itself three times over

Sure, there are $100,000 industrial planers out there. The Woodmaster is not in that heavy industrial class. But it costs a fraction of industrial machines – pennies on the dollar. And I want to add – on this one project, the Woodmaster paid for itself at least three times over.

I talked with their sales guys several times while setting the machine up. They didn’t rush, they took their time helping me out. I felt very comfortable working with them. I haven’t had many dealings with the Woodmaster Tools company since I’ve purchased but, when I have, they’ve given me excellent customer service. That’s a biggie. If I have an issue, they jump right on it and help me out.

“Stop thinking and just do it”

If you’re thinking about getting a Woodmaster, stop thinking and just do it! The tricky part of a project like this is having a wife that doesn’t raise hell about buying the tools and equipment you need to do the work. I texted her a picture of the new excavator sitting in the driveway and it almost put the poor girl over the edge. But it’s all good now…I think.”

— Darrell Bice, Woodmaster 725 Owner, Jacksonville, AL

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“My name is Gary Greenlee and I’ve been involved in woodworking pretty much all of my career. I’ve always worked in the trades, construction and plumbing. I’ve owned a Woodmaster Planer for around five years and recently got Woodmaster’s Spiral Cutterhead. It really does a good job.

Always worked in the trades

I started in plumbing and over the years I did a lot of commercial remodeling. I had a contract to work on federal buildings like Post Offices and so on. I did installation work for Montgomery Ward and Sears.

I personally built seven homes in four states – two of these were spec homes. My wife was instrumental in this. She worked extremely hard to achieve our goals and gave more than 100% to complete our tasks. She designed homes I built and also furniture I build.

Reclaimed, old-growth hickory and oak

Today, I’m semi-retired and I’ve gotten heavily into woodworking in the last 6 years or so. The furniture I build is mainly made out of barn wood trusses that I reclaimed out of a Georgia barn that was being torn down. Turned out the wood was old-growth hickory and oak. And I use hardwoods from South America and Africa, too.

I loaded my 18’ trailer with as many truss boards as possible. They were all odd sizes, 2” or 2-1/2” by 6″ or 7” by random lengths and had the original circular saw marks. I picked out the nails and took boards to a sawmill. I plane the wood to even thickness but I keep the saw marks as decoration on the furniture I build.

Solid wood furniture

I turn this reclaimed lumber into solid wood furniture that’ll be around a long time. I’ve given some away and a lot is for our own use.

This 12” Woodmaster is great and the Spiral Cutterhead is, too. It’s all no trouble, works good. I bought this one used from an old guy. The machine’s an old-timer from the 1980’s but it works fine. I take care of it and it works great. If somebody got one of these, it’d do everything they need.”

— Gary Greenlee, Woodmaster Owner, Alpharetta GA

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“I inherited my dad’s trait of doing it myself and conserving money when possible. It’s frustrating to pay someone to build what you can build yourself.” — Tom Harger

I grew up on a farm. My dad was a dairy farmer and raised some beef cattle. His philosophy was to fix something himself before he called anybody in to fix it. He’d take neighbors’ machinery when they got rid of it, fix it, and use it. That’s what I grew with. I’ve always been handy and I guess I’ve inherited his trait – to do it myself and conserve money when possible. It’s frustrating to pay someone to build or do what you can do yourself. For example, I built a dry kiln for lumber out of an old school bus. It has solar heat in the day and a dehumidifier at night. It works pretty well.

I built our dream home in retirement

I built our home using my Woodmaster Planer to plane all the beams, posts, decking, and paneling. I made total of 11,000 board feet of tongue and groove boards for the decking. I made over 5,000 board feet of interior wall paneling from red and white oak, pecan, cherry, hackberry, honey locust, walnut, and eastern red cedar. I could not have done it without my Woodmaster Planer.

My wife and I have lived in several places and have owned several homes. You can make an existing home your own but we always dreamed of building a home the way we wanted to. I’ve built barns before and I knew I could do it.

A bargain considering the cost of lumber

Today we own 120 acres in a rural area. We decided this is where we’d move and build our retirement home. I bought a CAD program to draw plans. I cut brush, put in a half-mile waterline, built a bridge over a river, felled trees, sawed them into boards, and got a Woodmaster Planer. I considered it a bargain considering what lumber would have cost us.

I wanted wood paneling throughout the home’s interior. I knew I’d have to have a planer because I wanted the paneling to have a smooth finish. So a planer was part of the plan all along. I looked at Woodmaster and a few others and what sold me on Woodmaster was a couple of the add-ons. I saw that I could make tongue and groove decking in one pass with the 3-Side Molding System.

And the Spiral Cutterhead would create a smooth surface. My boards had a lot of knots and that would have meant a lot of sharpening planer blades. With the Spiral Cutterhead, if I hit a knot, all I had to do was turn one of the hundreds of 4-sided cutters 90-degrees to a new face. I also got the Pro Pack with its drum sander and gang ripsaw.

“Wonder if I can plane 20’ beams?”

I had cut and stacked my beams 6” x 10” x up to 20’ long. I had a tractor with loading forks, the Woodmaster, and long roller ramps. I thought I’d try putting the beams through the Woodmaster and it worked well. They were mostly red oak with some white oak and ash. In all, I made 10 trusses with 10 beams each. I made posts, too, or about 150 beams and posts in all. I welded up Y-shaped, 1/4” thick steel plates to join everything together.

We still have a few things we’re finishing up on this house. But I don’t want to just sit around in the future. I’ve got more trees and I’ve thought I might turn some into lumber to earn some extra money. When I look at the lumber prices at Lowe’s, I know I could make some money.

Heavy use, almost abuse

I think the Woodmaster is an excellent machine. It’s stood up to my heavy use, almost abuse. It’s rugged, it’s worked well and held up well. It’s impressive that you can take an old oak log and transform it into something beautiful. Yes, I recommend the Woodmaster Planer.”

— Thomas Harger, Woodmaster Planer Owner, Havana AR

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