Shopsmith Forums

I just clean the tires with a toothbrush. I would not treat or lube in anyway. There are lots of sources of blades and you do not have to use shopsmith. Timberwolf are the best in my opinion. I have used Bosh from the big box stores.I think SS blades are better than Bosh but not as good as TW in my opinion.

The bandsaw is working beautifully which makes me happy. Now, however, it looks like I need to work on the table before I can use the other accessories.

The table is quite corroded. What can I do, if anything, to get it back into nice, usable shape?

Oooh. That might be a difficult one to save. Luckily, they are very cheap on ebay, and plentiful. Or, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace.

ghouliegirl wrote:The bandsaw is working beautifully which makes me happy. Now, however, it looks like I need to work on the table before I can use the other accessories.

The table is quite corroded. What can I do, if anything, to get it back into nice, usable shape?

You should be able to get it looking nice again.

This post shows how Mickyd did his. https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/view ... 744#p35744

or, on the facebook group people have had good results cleaning them up with random orbital sanders and progressively finer grits of sandpaper.

Get some penetrating oil on the screws for the saw blade insert. Sometimes those take a while to loosen up. The old 500 tables were one solid piece of aluminum, at some point the edge on the right side of the table became a separate piece that you may or may not want to remove depending on condition. And if it's not flat just find a replacement. As mentioned above they are available on eBay.

edma194 wrote:Get some penetrating oil on the screws for the saw blade insert. Sometimes those take a while to loosen up. The old 500 tables were one solid piece of aluminum, at some point the edge on the right side of the table became a separate piece that you may or may not want to remove depending on condition. And if it's not flat just find a replacement. As mentioned above they are available on eBay.

Do you mean the fence rail on the in feed side of the table?

If the table surface or miter slot is deeply "pitted" with corrosion; I wouldn't waste the time, and effort of trying to revive your table. You won't ever be satisficed with it. You want a table saw table to be extremely flat, smooth and slick; no matter if it is aluminum or cast iron.

jsburger wrote:
Do you mean the fence rail on the in feed side of the table?

Yes. I should have said the right side of the picture.

Chad wrote:If the table surface or miter slot is deeply "pitted" with corrosion; I wouldn't waste the time, and effort of trying to revive your table. You won't ever be satisficed with it. You want a table saw table to be extremely flat, smooth and slick; no matter if it is aluminum or cast iron.

Pits don't effect the table function. They are below the surface. As long as the top surface can be cleaned the pits are only cosmetic. It is the same way with way tubes. They can be pitted but as long as the original surface can be cleaned without removing much material they will work fine.

Think of the new MK V tables with the grooves in them. The grooves are basically BIG pits.

Have you tried cleaning the table top yet? Looks like some of that might be old gunk or something. You should be able to save this table.
I've had good results restoring tables by taking a flat board or series of boards, wider than the table, and using 3m spray adhesive and gluing on finer grit sandpaper (start with 220). Different board for each grit. I don't use much force and just let the weight of the wood do the work for the most part, push and pulling. I do this with the table bolted to the table assembly incase the aluminum flexes alittle under the mounting holes for the tilt mechanism. Boards are only 3-4" wide. Just like flattening a hand plane sole, keep the frog bolted in place. Once it is clean or flat enough, I clean off the aluminum of any sanding dust and then leave it in the sun for a while to heat up. Then apply generous coats of paste wax and let the pores soak it up between buffing. I clean the miter slots with green scotch bright and wax.