Help ID this ShopSmith! Good Buy?
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I got my Mark 500 for $700 near Chicago. It came with all the standard accessories as well as the bandsaw, jointer, shaper, belt sander, surface planer and a foot locker to store some of the accessories. The guy that had it was asking $900 for it and I got him to come down to $700. I found it on craigslist after watching for sometime.
It looks exactly like my 1977. I love that thing. I paid $850 for the Mark 5, bandsaw, belt sander, jig saw, and jointer plus assorted accessories. I had been looking in central Florida for about 6 months when my wife said she wanted to build birdhouses. That night I saw the Shopsmith in a brand new listing on Craigs list. It included the jig saw she needed and was priced in line with others for sale. I immediately emailed him and said I would be there the next day with a trailer and would take it if he would set it up so we could run it and check it out.
My rambling point is do you want a shopsmith or are you shopping for a good deal? I personally wish I had bought one for retail when I first started thinking they made sense for my space. There was no internet then and only about once a year did one show up in the want ads. It would have been paid for long ago and I could have been making stuff all these years. And I would never have bought a standalone jointer or bandsaw. A 12" disk/6" belt sander was going to set me back $1200.
So if you were willing to pay $800 how important is that extra $200 to you compared to all the projects you can do in the next few years? What if you don't get it and two years from now you find one for $900 without the dust collector?
Just my $0.02.
My rambling point is do you want a shopsmith or are you shopping for a good deal? I personally wish I had bought one for retail when I first started thinking they made sense for my space. There was no internet then and only about once a year did one show up in the want ads. It would have been paid for long ago and I could have been making stuff all these years. And I would never have bought a standalone jointer or bandsaw. A 12" disk/6" belt sander was going to set me back $1200.
So if you were willing to pay $800 how important is that extra $200 to you compared to all the projects you can do in the next few years? What if you don't get it and two years from now you find one for $900 without the dust collector?
Just my $0.02.
Mims, Florida
1977 Shopsmith with bandsaw, belt sander, joiner, and jig saw
1977 Shopsmith with bandsaw, belt sander, joiner, and jig saw