To buy or not

[putttn]

I'm really a novice at woodworking but would like to start getting more into it. Don't have any plans to build anything, only do home repair etc projects. In the past I've found from purchasing tools that sometimes you're better off just getting the best or you end up spending a lot more money upgrading. I was thinking of just purchasing a few woodworking items and after looking at some forums, Shopsmith keeps coming up as the ultimate. I'm 63 years old so I'd like to purchase something that I can keep till I croak and not have to go out and buy a bunch of individual pieces and end up with a garage full of equipment. Am I going in the right direction or should I start out with a portable saw like the Bosch 4000 and move up from there?

[dusty]

I am 68 and like to think I am going strong. I would not give up my Shopsmith if someone offered me a free tablesaw to replace it.

Now don't get me wrong, the right tablesaw might find a place along side the SS but it would not replace it. For a couple reasons.

The table ssaw would need to be accompanied by a drill press, a horizontal boring machine, a lathe, a disk sander, a jointer and a surface planer. Now in all fairness, the jointer and the surface planer don't come as part of "a Shopsmith" but they are convenient attachments there to.

You said you don't want to build anything, just do house repairs. I think you'll end up doing a lot more, like picture frames, shelves, small outdoor tables, etc but the SS will certainly provide the table saw, drill press and sanding capabilities that come as natural extension of housefold repairs.
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Making Sawdust Safely

[putttn]

Thanks for the quick reply. Now to confuse the issue, I just spoke with a gentleman, about our vintage, who has been woodworking for over 60 years and has owned a SS. His comment was, " they make a lousy tablesaw but everything else is ok. The two best times of ownership is when you buy and when you sell"! Of course he works in a tool store and says he's owned just about every tool in the place over the years. There's not a dealer in my town though.

[fjimp]

I turn 65 later this year. I have had my eye on the Shopsmith for nearly thirty years. I bought mine nearly a year ago. I am planning toward retirement and have wanted a first class wordworking shop even longer than that. I find my model 520 has opened many opportunities to do projects I never considered trying. After purchasing I attended three days of traveling academies. What a bargain. Yes get one and discover just how interesting life can become. Jim Parks

[dusty]

The gentleman who believes that Shopsmith makes a lousy tablesaw certainly has a right to his opinion. It would be interesting to know why he thinks it is lousy and what he would rather have but we will probably never know that. It would be equally interesting to know how he most frequently used it.

As I said in an earlier post on this thread, I like mine and probably would not replace it if I had a chance. Why? Because it serves me well. It is properly sized for the type of work I do. It is as accurate as I need it to be and there have been very few tasks that I wanted to do that it didn't fill the bill.

No matter what you might buy, find someone who can provide the appropriate classes to teach you how to use yours. Not knowing how to use your shop equipment can be very dangerous.

fjimp has it right. Take the traveling academy classes and then, using your Shopsmith, discover just how interesting like can become.

Let us know what you decide. I am sure everyone is as interested as I.
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Making Sawdust Safely

[paulmcohen]

Thanks for the quick reply. Now to confuse the issue, I just spoke with a gentleman, about our vintage, who has been woodworking for over 60 years and has owned a SS. His comment was, " they make a lousy table saw but everything else is OK.

This attitude is mostly from prople with a 500 and a few with a 510, when you get to the 520 I never hear this. I use my 520 to cut full sheets of plywood that you could not control on most normal saws. The top is huge with all the table configurations , the new fence and rip scale you can do whatever you need.

[deanthom]

The guy that owns the store is what many would call a tool snob. I have my own snobby areas, but we can talk about shop and Shopsmith.

There are precious few things that you can't do on a Shopsmith, in my experience. There are some size constraints, obviously, but there are on every other tool as well. The Shopsmith is not for everyone, nor for everything, but for the normal guy or gal doing woodwork, it either does or can be adapted/adjusted to do just about everything a woodworking person might want to tackle.

The tilting table is the one thing that is at issue for the SS. On a traditional, tilt-ARBOR tablesaw, yes, you can do things that you just can't accomplish well on a Shopsmith. One project came up on this forum, I believe, that doesn't fit the Shopsmith's profile: doing miters or compound miters on 16-foot sections of wide crown molding. You could do those on a tilt-arbor saw, but might be better off on a radial arm saw or even a good compound miter saw. You could do them on the Shopsmith, too, but you'd have to do them outside or have REALLY tall ceilings! \___ on the floor otherwise.

Woodturning is my favorite thing, although I've been known to do a variety of flatwork as well. I'm limited on my SS as to what I can and can't turn, either because of size constraints or speed restrictions that pertain to wise and safe use. I don't wring my hands about those. If I want to do a 24" platter, I'll have to go visit my buddy, buy him a six pack or a bottle of wine, or a couple of decaf lattes and he'll be a happy conspirator! Nope, I can't do 36" balusters for my porch either. That's why I bought a dedicated lathe that CAN handle those. Some day, I hope to have a Powermatic 4224 with an extension so that I can make bedpost size stuff or 24" platters whenever I want to! And, of course, then others will want to use it and they'll be buying ME the wine!

The Shopsmith is a dandy middleweight machine. It fills a great niche in the wonder-filled world of woodworking. It allows for many tools in a small shop space. It allows many tasks to be done on one convertible frame. It forces you to think through processes that you'd otherwise probably ignore, making you work smarter. The machine is of reasonable quality for what we're paying. You can spend a whole lot less on four of the five stand-alone versions of our 5-in-one machine, but you'll end up with junk, guaranteed.

I've used my SS and a SS-clone before it for about 25 years, putting them through a lot of physical stress. Repair or down time has been minimal, expense for repairs has been minimal (and often my own fault!). My current machine is a 520 born as a 510 in 1992. It had been rode hard and put away wet a few too many times before it came to live in my shop, so the quill was needy. That's been fixed, the whole thing readjusted and realigned, and has been running just fine since then.

If you're planning on doing 16' sections of crown molding with compound miters, turn 48" spindles or 20" bowls, or do other oversized work, this ain't the tool for you, but if you want to the sort of stuff that fits into the other 95% or so of real world woodworking, you can do it with a Shopsmith.

[reible]

Hi,

If you haven't gone to this site please do so:
http://www.songofthegreatlakes.com/shopsmith.htm

It is good reading and may make some of the shopsmith plus's a little easier to understand. Please note this is not a guy sell shopsmith for shopsmith but a user who gets "it". Some people just don't get "it" (like Norm)... but for a lot of others, we get "it".

I use to dream about having a shopsmith some day... looking at the ads in the popular mechanics back in the 1950's... For a while that dream was on hold as shopsmith went away.... Then one day back in the 1970's I saw the ads again! I saved up my money and for about $745, a lot of money back in 1976 when I was making about $1000 a month,and I took the plunge. It was all that I hoped it would be, I sold my Rockwell table saw and never looked back.

I now have two machines, my first 500 upgraded to a 520 and a second hand fixer-up that was a 510 but is now also a 520. I'm retired now and enjoying the shopsmith equipment I have. For me it has been a great investment and I would do it all over again if I had to... (well, I would not wait for so long on the 500 to 520 upgrade it is a major upgrade to the whole system).

Take your time, think it over, ask some questions, and remember come here or to:
http://www.ssug.org
for answers to questions about the shopsmith as there are a lot of people who attempt to answer questions about something (shopsmith) they just plain don't know about.

Ed

[8iowa]

Putttn:

I'm 68 and have owned a Shopsmith since '83. I started with the 500, later upgraded to 510 and later yet to the 520. My son and I have used this machine a lot thru the years and onlythis year did I have to send my headstock back to the factory for service and repairs, the bearings were finally getting worn out. The machine will now certainly outlast me.

Yes you can buy cheap Chinese saws at Lowes and Home Depot but if something goes wrong you will probably not get any service. I inherited a Rhobi radial arm saw and had a hard time just obtaining an instruction manual. Even tho it's not really that old parts are no longer available. In complete contrast you will find Shiopsmith's service second to none.

Yes, the Shopsmith is beat upon constantly for the fact that the table rather than the blade tilts. Non-the-less I just put a 45 degree bevel on the entire length of a 2x4 without any difficulty.

My Shopsmith has been used a lot for home repair projects. My 520, utilizing the 5' extension tubes and a floating table (simple set up) gives me a ripping capacity wide enough to trim 1/2 inch off the length of a 4x8 panel. None of the cheap saws on the market can do this.

You will also find that a lot of the baseboard and trim on the market today is a type of plastic foam. With the Shopsmith you can reduce the saw speed so that the plastic doesn't melt.

Three years ago I gave my so-in-law a Shopsmith for Christmas. He now has it in his living room that is being completely being remodeled. It is now the key machine in his project. With the dust collector the nearby dining room and kitchen are not affected. Using the cross-cut sled, another handy accessory, we cross cut several 16 inch wide boards. I don't think you could do this on a cheap saw either. The Shopsmith with a few accessories is definitely a superior mome project machine, and I've only talked about it's usefullness as a saw.

My brother is of the single stationery tool mindset and he has recently built a 24 x 32 shop and a cost of around $30,000. I've always used 1/2 of a two car garage. Well maybe I crowd the other half a little bit. The only other additional expense you might want to consider is an electrical sub-panel in your garage or at a minimum, a 20 amp circuit.

[ericolson]

Interesting that this topic has come up. Over the last week, I was in a pretty heated discussion concerning the pros/cons of the Shopsmith on the Old Woodworking Machines forum (owwm.org). I came in (the only one) on the defense of the Shopsmith. I think I can speak from both sides of the street as I've got a shop full of stand alone machines and a Shopsmith. I agree with everything in all of the posts: there are a few, just a few, things the Shopsmith has difficulty doing. But, if you're going to be a hobbyist, with space (or lack of) to consider, and you don't want to make a huge investment, then Shopsmith is the way to go. Even in my shop, with all of the machinery I have at my disposal, my MK V gets used on EVERY single project, in one configuration or another. I will not, will never, won't do it, no way, get rid of my Shopsmith. I specialize in Arts and Crafts and Greene and Greene style furniture making. There are few pieces that require turning, so with the little turning I do, the Shopsmith more than fills the bill. The disc sander is more than up to the task, so I can't justify getting a stand alone disc sander. I wouldn't trade the Shopsmith in drill press mode for anything. You can go to Rockler or Woodcraft or Hartville Tool and find all kinds of aftermarket drill press tables and fences or you can take the time to build your own but with the SS the forward tilt table and fence are built right in. As a matter of fact; Delta and Powermatic have just introduced "woodworking" drill presses with fences and tables and lasers. For over a grand each!!! Ryobi had a sharp little woodworking drill press a few years back, but it cost over $500.00 and the line was discontinued. And I don't need a laser on a drill press. To me, that's just a gimmick, as it's not that hard to center a drill bit on a piece of stock by eye.
I use the horizontal boring feature quite a bit, primarily for mortising with a router chuck and upcut spiral bits. A stand alone horizontal boring machine and mortiser would run you a couple of grand easy!
I feel the table saw works just fine, and I've got a Model 500. It can be a bit of a pain getting set up to do a wide rip cut, but it's not that much of a big deal. Plus, it forces me to measure two, three, and even four times to make sure I'm being accurate and have the right measurements. I've also got two stand alone tablesaws (one is down because I blew the motor, somehow!). Right now, I'm working on two custom designed nightstands. I've got my stand alone tablesaw set up with a cross-cut sled for sizing the solid cherry panels and I'm using the Shopsmith set-up for rip cuts. Could I do everything on my SS? Yep. Do I need to? No. But I certainly could if I didn't have everything else I have. One thing is for certain: if I had to sell all of my machinery because of unfortunate circumstances; I WOULD NOT SELL MY SHOPSMITH!! Period.
I may upgrade to the 520 set-up, one of these days, but right now I don't need to. I agree with Dean 100% about tool snobs. I can't stand 'em! Most of the time, their opinions of the Shopsmith are based on what they've heard and not what they've done. As one who is fortunate enough to have the best of both worlds, I can say that my Shopsmith will always have a guarenteed workhorse position in my shop!