Shopsmith Forums

Need a little more info to know how to help you, Scott. Test your carriage with the lathe tool rest post. Mount the post in the front carriage hole and crank it up and down. Do the same in the back carriage hole. If the lathe tool rest moves up and down smoothly, the problem is likely with the table...

Folks, I put my Shopsmith up on 4x4 blocks for lathe work. The late Rudy Osolnik, professor of woodworking at Berea College and a nationally renowned turner, put all 3 of his Shopsmiths on blocks. Jim McCann, our plant engineer and a master craftsman whose work has been published in dozens of books,...

The answers to your questions, Ed: 1. Just about the same time we introduced the 520, the mold for the table casting wore out. When we made the new mold, we decided to eliminate the ribs in the central section of the table because a fair number of user had complianed that these ribs made it difficul...

Thanks for the plug, Jim. You probably should mention that "Woodworking Wisdom" is out of print; interested folks will have a better chance finding it on Ebay or a used-book site than at a book store.

With all good wishes,

I'll ask the Engineering staff for you, Ed, and post again tomorrow. But I want to address the problem of out-of-true table. More often than not, a table that appears not to be flat is actually improperly aligned. When you loosen the four bolts to align the table to the saw blade, slip a $20 bill be...

I'll add another thought. You can doctor up your miter gauge all you want, but the real solution for accurate crosscuts in long boards is a "sled." We call it a "sliding table" in the catalog to make it sound sexier. The link is http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/swd_ccst...

Folks, I wrote the belt sander manual (eons ago, it seems), so I put the "Alignment and Adjustment" section in a .pdf file for all to share. It answers all the issues raised in this thread. Here's the link: http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Academy_Notes_files%20--%20SSNWA/Belt_Sander_Alignm...

We just overhauled a headstock from a local school that had the same problem -- bearings were bad, sheaves were sticking. It had seen way too much sawdust and way too little lubrication. If you'd like top send it to us at the Shopsmith Factory Outlet in Dayton, Ohio, we'd be tickled pea-green to ove...