Shopsmith Forums

Nothing real fancy by your guys standards, but pretty much every step was done on the Shopsmith except the logo and polishing of the plastic edges.
A few rough edges left to iron out. This one is a R & D test mule.

Used Poplar on this one.

Looks good to me!

Very cool! If this one is for "R&D", does that mean you see a market for them? Sounds like fun.

Nice finish on the Poplar base. Would like to read more about the electronics you have here.

I love Skidoos ran one over the snow for several years.

Charlese,

Basically LED light strip is what lights it. I have played with both 9 volt battery and a 120 volt transformer. At first I liked the thought of the battery, but am more leaning towards the 120 volt transformer. The battery holders that I have found are "bleep backwards" with regards to the switch location, but what should we expect when we import due to price not quality.

I have more Ski-Doo's than any sane man should have. Then some Scorpions, Polaris, A stray Arctic Cat.... You get the picture... LOL I doubt that anyone here has more shopsmiths than I have snowmobile's! I tend to go overboard with "collections" And yes I am already up to 2 shopsmiths, but at least they all run. I can't say that about all my snowmobiles!

This is the second design. I liked the color of the yellow better on the first, I was hoping this one would be brighter, which it is a little but has a bit of a green hue to the light. So I will be going back to design 1 for the light strip configuration, but staying with this base configuration.

Buckeye,
Yes I hope to sell them. My price is getting a bit higher than I had hoped due to cost of materials and labor. But I am going to give it the college try. I already reproduce some parts (some work done on the shopsmith), and some other services that this might tie in well with. If it doesn't go over to well, I learned a lot about using the router and finishing wood so all is good.

I have a sanding question which pertains to this base.

I have both a belt sander and disc sander. From what I see they both have their pros and cons.

But, most things that I have read state to sand with the grain which a disc sander cannot really do in most cases, mine included. But I liked how I could support the base square and move the disc sander into the piece keeping everything square.

The piece above is done with a disc sander. What benefits when it comes to staining would a belt sander give me?

ddub wrote:I have a sanding question which pertains to this base.

I have both a belt sander and disc sander. From what I see they both have their pros and cons.

But, most things that I have read state to sand with the grain which a disc sander cannot really do in most cases, mine included. But I liked how I could support the base square and move the disc sander into the piece keeping everything square.

The piece above is done with a disc sander. What benefits when it comes to staining would a belt sander give me?

After power sanding with the disc, manually move the piece over the disc(stationary) with the grain.

ddub wrote:...The piece above is done with a disc sander. What benefits when it comes to staining would a belt sander give me?

With a belt sander, you can sand parallel to the grain. Always an advantage to avoid cross grain scratches. That said, if the disk gave you what you showed above, any advantage is small.
The belt sander has a 6"x9" adjustble work table that can be set to result in a squared workpiece.
By rolling a workpiece against the worktable can give a beautiful curved edge.
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Taking the thread another direction - - Every time we came back from a day trip on snowmobiles, the next day was maintenance Had to find out why my wife's dual cylinder Skidoo was blowing holes in cylinders. Worked out to be the head gasket was assembled upside down, allowing air into the combustion making too lean gas/oil mixture. Sorry for the detour!

Ok,
So sanding with the grain is just about removing the scratches and not causing cross scratches? Well as a lifelong person employed in the autobody industry, sanding is something I know something about! At least on every substrate besides wood. LOL

In the autobody industry we are used to using a bit finer sandpaper than what it appears as if a lot of woodworkers use. I know the sanding grits offered on Shopsmiths website are coarser than what I feel comfortable with. I also know that you have to step your grits without jumping to big of a grit between steps so that you can refine that scratch and then proceed to the next grit.

I started sanding at 180 grit on this one, and finished with 240 on the disc sander and lightly hit it with 320 on my 3 inch DA. Mainly to see if I had missed any scratches.

Charlese, I used the belt sander to round the edges on my first prototype, but I preferred the way the 4 corners looked using a router. Just a bit more consistent, at least for me. I do use the belt sander on a lot of projects, but on this project just felt more comfortable with the disc sander.

My first unit, I started with 80 grit and didn't work it quite long enough and I did see a few little things that I didn't like, hence the second one was started with 180. I actually liked using the 180 better. A bit more control and really just about as fast without having the large scratches to deal with. I like finer sanding grits in autobody than many technicians also. But like anything, there are many ways to accomplish the same task. An extremely hard wood may have me singing a different tune?

JPG,
That is actually such a simple solution! LOL Sometimes the obvious escapes me.

Well a bit more ready for prime time.