I find around 20% of the way tubes I accumulate are bent. I find a few bench tubes are also bent. I took around 24 bent tubes to the scrap metal dealer last month. Good price these days. I detect these bent tubes when mounting them on my Shopsmith cleaning, sanding and polishing tube machine. Most bent tubes are quite noticeable and vibrate when spinning at 800 RPM.reible wrote:If your tubes are bent which could happen if they and the headstock fell from vertical, or someone decided to some other damage to it. The tubes will not deflect under the weight of any of the tools and headstock under normal conditions.
Ed
I have not found any bent 10E/10ER way tubes. The 10ER tubes polish up much better than the Mark V tubes so I use them on all my personal Shopsmiths. I believe the 10ER tubes help dampen some headstock vibrations too.
My best guess is leaving the headstock in the center of the way tubes for years and moving the Shopsmith to various locations (rough floor). Also, dropping the headstock the last foot or so when coming from the vertical to horizontal positions which has happen to me a few times (slipped from my hand).