As I understand it, the Powermatic 64 Artisan is also referred to as the 64A (the "A" standing for Artisan).
No. The "A" as in "64A" represents a model change from the plain "64".
The Model "64" and the "64A" are both part of the Artisan line, along with lots of other Powermatic products.
If you look at a Powermatic catalog, they still use the letter convention to denote a model change. For example, the non-Artisan Model 3520 lathe was replaced by the Model 3520
A, which was replaced by the Model 3520
B.
For example #2, Model 60 jointer was replaced by the 60
A, which was replaced by the 60
B.
Model 54 was replaced by the 54A
Etc.
Recently Powermatic has started to use a bit of an alphabet soup of letters for their new models, e.g. PJ882SH - I assume this means "
P arallelogram
J ointer
8" wide
82" long,
S piral
H ead".
But the A, B, etc convention holds for model changes.
-Mark