Powermatic now offers its venerable 15-in. planer with an insert-cutter helical head. Model No. 15HH ($2,200; www.powermatic.com) has carbide insert cutters arranged in a spiral pattern, with the front edge of each cutter aligned parallel to the spiral centerline to produce a shearing cut.

Hellical cutterhead helps elminate tearout when planing figured woods

Unlike straight knives, which can produce a lot of tearout on curly, bird’s-eye, or other figured woods, a helical head with cutters set for a shearing cut will produce little, if any, tearout. Each cutter has four sharpened faces, so you can rotate it 90° to get a fresh edge. Effectively, then, you won’t need to resharpen the cutters until all four edges are dull, and carbide holds an edge many times longer than steel.

I planed maple with switchback grain, swirls, bird’s eye, curl, and other anomalies to less than 1/4 in. thick with no blowout of the switchback and no significant tearout.

One drawback: Insert cutters produce a slightly furrowed texture. That said, the furrows were no deeper than 0.001 in. and sanded out very quickly with fine sandpaper.

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