Assembling a Powermatic 719t

I purchased a new piece of machinery for the shop last week and managed to get some of the assembly done last night.  I actually started the assembly yesterday.  I started working on the base cabinet.  Actually, the mobile base for the entire thing.

The mobile base is a universal version.  (Powermatic has discontinued the mobile base designed for this mortiser.)  The mobile base was a little too big in its minimum configuration.  So, I modified the stretchers by reducing their length and by drilling new holes for the index pins.  That reduced the size by a couple of inches.  It's still not perfect, but it is better.


I'd been warned by the salesman who sold me the 719t that it was extremely top heavy.  He's right.  In order to offset that a little bit, I installed some 8x16x2 cinder blocks in the interior of the base cabinet.  It's probably about 35 lbs of weight in the base.  The main bulk of the machine is around 250lbs, so it doesn't help too much.

As stated, the main body of the machine weighs around 250lbs.  Somehow I had to get it from its packing crate up to the top of the base cabinet.  I might have been easier if I'd started with it higher than it needed to be and worked down to the correct height, but I worked from the ground up.

It would have been great if I'd been able to just lift the thing, but my wife and I were not able to do that.  So, we had to find some mechanical advantages to use.  After scouring the shop and various nearby spots, we found a supply of cinder blocks and 2"x6" and 2"x4" lumber.  So began the process of tilting the machine back and forth, sliding the lumber under one edge of the base and then the other.  When we got it to a sufficient height, we'd slide some cinder blocks under it, remove the lumber, readjust the machine so that it was supported by more cinder blocks and then repeat the process.

We got the machine up on two stacks of 3 cinder blocks each.  At that point, it was level with the top of the base cabinet.  We applied some wax to the top of the base cabinet and slid the machine from the cinder blocks to the base cabinet.

Then we secured the top to the base with the supplied bolts.  We had to put a flashlight inside the base cabinet so that we could tell when the holes in the base were lined up with the holes in the top.  A small sledge hammer was used to persuade the top to be in the correct spot.

After that we called it a day, closed up the shop, ordered pizza and chilled.  Final setup and adjustment will be done later this week probably Wednesday.

Total time setting up so far: about 4 hours