green and/or gray

wiredone · Post by **wiredone** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:42 pm

Judging by the side shot of your headstock, it is an A casting. Probably has no inspection hole on the other side?
54-55 would be more likely

cranehead · Post by **cranehead** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:31 pm

wiredone wrote:Judging by the side shot of your headstock, it is an A casting. Probably has no inspection hole on the other side?
54-55 would be more likely

Yes there is no inspection hole- call it '55 then. Thanks that was what I was wondering.

TC

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 12:39 am

wiredone wrote:Living (inert actually) proof.
The repainted piece has a hole size of 2.03" it is from late 1956.
The unfinished original picture is from my 1959 model and the hole is about 1 7/8 or so, I'm not willing to disassemble it for a pic.
I have a 1960 goldie/brownie that I'm parting out and it has the same size hole as the late greenie.
So, I can ascertain that sometime between 1957-late 59 they changed.

Besides hole size, the casting has ribs that position the bench tube spacing. Those ribs are 10 1/4" apart on the models having 1 3/4" bench tubes, and 10 3/8" apart on the models having 1 7/8" bench tubes. Thus the distance from the outer surface of the tubes will be different. AIUI the ribs were changed to maintain 8 1/2" c-c for the bench tubes.

By measuring the tube overall width will determine the end casting version. Early 1 7/8" castings oa tube width is 10 3/8" vs 10 1/4" for later models.

It is possible that used machines may have bench tubes inconsistent with oem since the early ones were not plated and rusted badly(different steel also AIUI). For that matter, your end castings may not be 'original' either.

For the time being, yours is an anomaly.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 12:43 am

cranehead wrote:The bench tubes on the green are 1 7/8 so I'm going to call it 1956 then til the true serial number surfaces.

Here's the mechanicals:

[ATTACH]16788[/ATTACH]

TC

What, Where, How, When it that gonna happen??;)

beeg · Post by **beeg** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:19 am

JPG40504 wrote:What, Where, How, When it that gonna happen??]

To answer your question.

cranehead wrote:The PO is moving soon and hopefully the cover will turn up. In the meantime I've called it SS50.

cranehead · Post by **cranehead** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:32 am

[quote="JPG40504"]What, Where, How, When it that gonna happen??]

After I realized it was missing I emailed the PO. I knew he was moving and owned another shopsmith. I asked him to let me know if it turned up in the move. I know it's a long shot, but you never know. It was disassembled by the PO and most of the hardware was missing, and the machine was pretty bare bones. It had the blade with arbor and the main and extension tables. I didn't figure on restoring this until I found that the motor ran on my bench. The PO had figured it to be a goner... so we'll see.

TC

cranehead · Post by **cranehead** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 11:20 pm

I've managed to do some work on the restoration projects in between other things. And some thanks are in order- a new vent cover plate for the Greene aka SS55 courtesy of JPG. Here's a preview:

[ATTACH]16987[/ATTACH]

Also original paperwork including manual and spare parts lists ca 1980 kindly sent by eagleta2:

[ATTACH]16988[/ATTACH]

The little details are sometimes the most challenging but really make a project complete, so I appreciate these things.

Weather is warming up finally and the special order of Verde Green has arrived, so painting will happen soon. What's left of the original green paint is pretty much falling off. I'm going to get it to bare metal without too much trouble and then I am thinking to use the self etching aluminum primer from rustoleum. I'm used to seeing more tenacity on original paint on old machines- maybe the old paints didn't like the aluminum:

[ATTACH]16989[/ATTACH]

(It almost looks like one of the old asian landscape paintings to me). the paint comes off in some spots just with brass wire brush, though I'm planning to use citrus strip.

Also made some intermittent progress on sanding the bench and way tubes. Even though I'm spinning them on a makeshift lathe 8 tubes seems like a lot of tedium, which makes me re-consider doing both machines at the same time. I may get one machine operational first- it might be cheaper too. Especially after I saw that the speed control on SS55 needs rebuilding, maybe I'll rob the good one from SS79.

I found a bunch of compacted sawdust in SS79- I image that's pretty typical. It took some doing to get the quill out of this one, patience and penetrating oil:

[ATTACH]16998[/ATTACH]

All for now.

TC

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 1:16 am

cranehead wrote: . . .

I found a bunch of compacted sawdust in SS79- I image that's pretty typical. It took some doing to get the quill out of this one, patience and penetrating oil:

[ATTACH]16998[/ATTACH]

All for now.

TC

Typical? Perhaps. Normal? No!

cranehead · Post by **cranehead** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 3:32 pm

Since I now have two headstocks of different vintages on the bench at the same time I took the opportunity to take some pics comparing the differences. The contrast between the older and newer casting especially interests me.

Here's one:

[ATTACH]17116[/ATTACH]

I'm not sure the pictures really show how much beefier and rougher the older casting method is. Maybe this is better:

[ATTACH]17118[/ATTACH]

In this one you can see how much thicker the ribs are in the casting:

[ATTACH]17117[/ATTACH]

The two quills, the black one of course being the newer version, you can see it has more splines and is longer.

[ATTACH]17119[/ATTACH]

This pic shows the difference in color between the newer and older speed control- the older looking more oxidized, like old vw bugs look that were red once upon a time. the older speed control is pretty chewed up. Probably send it out to be rebuilt.

[ATTACH]17120[/ATTACH]

I'm sure that was a more vibrant red originally

More to come.

TC

mikelst · Post by **mikelst** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:50 pm

This link is to the Sawdust Sessions, in here you will find some videos on restoring an old Mark 5 done by Nick Engler. They are packed with great information.

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Sawdust_Sessions.htm

Look at 21, 22, 23, and 24 under the SHOPSMITH reborn title

Also the book
Power Tool Woodworking for Everyone
is kind of considered the ShopSmith bible. It has tons of information in it but... Some revisions have things in them that others don't. Some jigs and practices and such that were shown in earlier revisions were later made by SHOPSMITH for sale or deemed unsafe or somthing and were dropped from the book.

There is an online version of the book available here.
http://www.shopsmith.com/academy/welcome.htm

There is also a series of lessons that teach the basic functions of the SHOPSMITH available. This is called the Self Study Course and is available here.

http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/mvedu_selfstudycourse.htm

I think everyone should have a copy of
Power Tool Woodworking for Everyone
in the shop. I personally have a copy of every revision that I have been able to locate.

Looks like you have your hands full.
Have fun.