Shopsmith Forums

I have been thinking about buying one of the SS head stocks on ebay and seting it up somehow as a lathe for larger bowls ect. Any one have ideas, thoughts, yay, nay,?

mustangpalmer1911 wrote:I have been thinking about buying one of the SS head stocks on ebay and seting it up somehow as a lathe for larger bowls ect. Any one have ideas, thoughts, yay, nay,?

If you already have a bunch of turning stuff that is setup for shopsmith then this is a pretty reasonable thing. If not, you might be better off watchin your local craigslist for a deal on a used lathe...particularly one which has a rotating motor for outboard turning. Unless you have a source for free/super cheap scrap metal for making the stand, it could get pretty pricy building a decent enough support for the headstock.

The reason that I make the comment regarding the turning stuff is that the SS headstock doesn't fit any vacuum chucks, for example. if you are going to get into bowl turning you will probably want one of those eventually. I found a link for a guy who built his own vacuum chuck for the shopsmith once, but that was a long time ago.

I'd suggest acquiring the individual parts/assemblies, and build yourself a 'spare' dedicated machine, if needed. I 'built' a shorty [reduced length] one, getting parts off eBay. I keep this usually setup for ScrollSaw work, but it can be changed out rapidly. I've used a 'engineered' fixture, mounted in the Extension Table mounting holes, to hold a 'Pillow block' [available in many sizes] enabling me to spin short & long [over 10'] aluminum tubing to refurbish several Amateur Radio antennas. Of course, a Lathe Chuck secures the tubing to the Headstock, and MUST be checked periodically. {Don't want anything 'dancing around' the shop.} I can quickly remove the years of accumulated 'grundge', and polish to like new condition. My machine is oriented in-line with my garage doorway, and another fixture holds a second Pillow Block [mounted to the doorframe], for the long lengths. You must not allow 'whipping', due to lack of supports. I've not tried it, but it seems that a larger [mass limited] than normal diameter project could be 'outboard' and with caution, turned in normal fashion.

SS is too fast for turning the larger unbalanced pieces. Get a dedicated JET or other brand if you really want to turn larger stuff. My SS started to dance around the driveway when I tried to turn a piece of 10" diameter hackberry that was not balanced enough. The 700 rpms is dangerously too fast for anything larger than a few inches at start up. With a speed reducer maybe 100 rpms would be ok, but I have turning friends that go about 20 rpms to start larger platters and bowls.