Greenie Rebuild - 3rd/4th gen

[pds0006]

Yep, I'd been watching those. Unfortunately I've exhausted my available funds for now so I won't be purchasing those handles at the moment. Fortunately that's a nice to have rather than critical and it can be bolted on at a later date. For now I've got parts to rebuild purchased if not present so time is the only commodity to contend with. Has anyone ordered replacement caster springs from ShopSmith and if so what was your wait time? I've been waiting over 3 weeks and when I last checked there was no target date; just the story that they have to tear apart an assembly to get them. Frustrating but understandable.

Anyway, more progress the last two days:

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This tie bar has given me more trouble than the rest of the paint on the SS COMBINED. It's about 40 years younger than the rest so I don't know if that's a statement on the age of the paint or due if that's powder coating (?).

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JB Weld on the spring. An ugly job but I wanted to make sure it stayed on. No current picture yet but when I popped it in my 1/4" plywood some of the weld cracked on the top by the swaging. 24 hours to setup and I'm pretty sure I wasn't exerting over 3000 psi so I'm dubious. I need to check the thickness of the headstock but I may need to figure out another way to fix this.

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Main table in Evaporust. I was taking a dremel wire wheel to the teeth and realized I couldn't get into the pipies anyway so the whole thing took a bath.

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Miter gauge face and oxidation. I tried Nev 'R Dull as well as Bar Keeper's friend to no real avail. I'll need to research this problem again but for now it can wait.

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The motor pan is FINISHED! It's a great feeling to have a piece painted and done; it really feels like progress is being made now.

[JPG]

Thank You for the table mounting post bathing!

I had not thought of that!

Will remember that fer sure!!!!:D

P.S. As long as the miter gauge face is flat, use as is.

[pds0006]

More items to be primed today and maybe even painted. First a public service announcement:

I ordered my green paint from Home Depot and it was sent via UPS. I couldn't find a check box but UPS required my signature to deliver the paint and I missed it yesterday. So be aware if you are ordering and plan accordingly.

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Results from yesterday. The complete base assembly save the pivot and the tie bar, to be completed today.

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Got my paint! I started on the inside of the belt cover to get a feel for the application. Not as "hammered" as I expected but I'm okay with that because I really do love that green color. I'm betting everyone has a similar reaction to their SS's assigned color but I do dig the green.

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Underside of the right assembly; you can see a hint of the texture with this angle.

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Primed items for the day: left base, rip fence piece, table pivot, miter gauge. Not pictured: way pivot, tie bar

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Right assembly and belt cover.

[JPG]

More items to be primed today and maybe even painted. First a public service announcement:

I ordered my green paint from Home Depot and it was sent via UPS. I couldn't find a check box but UPS required my signature to deliver the paint and I missed it yesterday. So be aware if you are ordering and plan accordingly.

[ATTACH]24446[/ATTACH]
Results from yesterday. The complete base assembly save the pivot and the tie bar, to be completed today.

[ATTACH]24447[/ATTACH]
Got my paint! I started on the inside of the belt cover to get a feel for the application. Not as "hammered" as I expected but I'm okay with that because I really do love that green color. I'm betting everyone has a similar reaction to their SS's assigned color but I do dig the green.

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Underside of the right assembly]24449[/ATTACH]
Primed items for the day: left base, rip fence piece, table pivot, miter gauge. Not pictured: way pivot, tie bar

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Right assembly and belt cover.

Hammered application 'secret'.

Shake well and often. The paint is a 'mixture' that when well blended separates after being applied and that separation creates the hammered look.

Do not attempt if any wind is present.

Apply to horizontal surface with a heavy coat(horizontal prevents running).

After about 5 minutes, the part can be rotated so as to place other surfaces in a horizontal position. The adjoining surfaces will blend nicely, but sharp edges need to be overlapped slightly when spraying the first surface.

I only prime the interior surfaces, but good idea to use as 'practice'.

P.S. You Might want to remove the primer from the miter and table scales plus clamping surface(and tape off before painting). Coloring the scale is best a singular project later.

[algale]

Not as "hammered" as I expected but I'm okay with that because I really do love that green color. I'm betting everyone has a similar reaction to their SS's assigned color but I do dig the green.

I've got a 520 in grey but I would much prefer it in hammered green (but I'm not about to do it until the existing paint needs to be redone). So for now I have to be satisfied with my old hammered green jig saw! When it introduced the Mark 7, Shopsmith missed an opportunity to go back to green. Bet it would increase sales due to the cool factor.

[pds0006]

JPG, thanks for the tips. I was planning to sand off the scales using some 400 grit and a glass backer once the paint was so yes, I'll be removing from the contact points. Just got a little carried away with the sunshine and the calm breeze.

Today was the opposite, raining and windy, so no painting whatsoever. Instead, today became metalwork day!

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Since it's the headstock and I've never tapped a hole much less aluminum, some practice was in order. The open hole was a #25 drill bit and tapped no problem. The hole currently holding the screw was drilled first to an approximation of a #8 sized hole then enlarged with the #25 bit and tapped. I wanted to make sure there weren't any surprises waiting in the headstock.


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1st hole tapped, motor pan on the tailstock end. I was surprised to find that my #25 bit removed NO metal; that should tell you how big the holes had gotten. It tapped smoothly and I was just over the moon that I hadn't screwed it up.

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The other holes were just as big and tapped just as smoothly. This picture shows the newly retapped hole on the left and one of two phantom holes on the right. This it back of the headstock and the legitimate hole is for the motor pan while the phantom is hidden behind the belt cover. There's no hole in the belt cover for it so no tapping.

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One of the nuts JBWeld-ed and setting up. I sprayed the bolts with some Boeshield to keep them from setting in the weld and was careful to apply it around the perimeter of the hole. My main concern is that the threads in the nut and the threads in the headstock lined up so the bolts wouldn't lock up.

[pds0006]

Next up was the access hole, the moment I've both been fearing and looking forward to. I've got the bit , I've practice (on plywood) and now I just need to pull the trigger.

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Clamped to my electrolysis box/painting table and THEN clamped that to my main working table. I wanted to minimize the movement (I did) while keeping the headstock low enough to work on. If I'd thought about it I would have clamped it directly to the main table, flipped the box upside down and used it as a raised platform. Same height reduction (maybe more) and no side clamping torque. In the end it was moot as the direction of the drill forced the torque into the bench rather than away but something to consider. Also, tons of aluminum chips all over. I discovered in all this clamping that a 2x4 will fit nicely under the flat for the quill feed and raise the headstock CLOSER to level (but not quite)

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The hole wasn't dead center between the prong cutouts but it was close enough. For anyone considering this mod be aware that it does not cut like butter. It's a flat cutting plane into a curved profile and it's aluminum not wood. Go slow and if you have a corded drill I recommend it. I have one and find that it just has better low end torque which works well in this application.

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Popped in the badge, man that is a satisfying sight.

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And about 30 seconds later, the disappointment. The spring detached right along the hairline crack I'd seen two days ago so while I wasn't particularly surprised I was disappointed. I'm not sure what kind of adhesive will truly secure this thing. However, now that I've got the hole I can try some options while painting continues.

[pds0006]

Not a lot of pictures the last two days. The weather didn't cooperate so I didn't get to dedicate the whole day to painting as I'd hoped. But I think I now have all of the parts to be painted (save the jointer) primed. I got the tailstock and tool rest posts derusted and sealed up to prevent future rust as well. I still need to finish flattening the tool rest but after about 1/2 hour with a 40 grit sanding belt glued to a tablesaw wing I'd worn a quarter sized blister onto my hand so had to stop.

For the access badge I got a grommet that I think I'd seen JPG or Dusty suggest and that works fine for now. I'd still like to fix the spring but big picture is getting the SS running again.

Sanded the caster bars up to 400 and sealed those making sure not to touch the items that would be in the housings (protecting tolerances).

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I added some aluminum parts to some Simple Green to see what would happen. Not much reaction for most stuff but when I scrubbed the speed dial I was amazed to see the paint being uncovered. I shouldn't have assumed it was unsaveable and started picking it out; now I've got really clean letters and some with no paint in them.

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Looking at it I'd swear that the color was orange rather than red. I grabbed a jar (?) of Testor's orange enamel paint and it looked like a match. Much closer to the original knob (left) than that knob is to a newer replacement (right). I'm not sure how I want to go on that; maybe I'll look at the orange on a spare depth dial I have.

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I did manager to get some painting done, mainly the exterior of the base assembly and the belt cover that I'd done insides of previously. But I did get the headstock primed in and out and the nuts did weld correctly so the screws would come out.

I chucked up a hard wheel and charged it w/ black emery compound to see what I could get on an unsanded table height knob. Pushing around compound I didn't think I'd done anything but when I wiped it off with a t-shirt scrap I had actually come up to a pretty good shine. I'm not sure how to remove the extra compound from the checkered section though. I'm going to take a spare knob through the sanding all the way up to polish to see what I think of it. That still seems like more than I want but I might go to a non-sanded polish; I'll need to test that too.

[JPG]

Not a lot of pictures the last two days. The weather didn't cooperate so I didn't get to dedicate the whole day to painting as I'd hoped. But I think I now have all of the parts to be painted (save the jointer) primed. I got the tailstock and tool rest posts derusted and sealed up to prevent future rust as well. I still need to finish flattening the tool rest but after about 1/2 hour with a 40 grit sanding belt glued to a tablesaw wing I'd worn a quarter sized blister onto my hand so had to stop.

For the access badge I got a grommet that I think I'd seen JPG or Dusty suggest and that works fine for now. I'd still like to fix the spring but big picture is getting the SS running again.

Sanded the caster bars up to 400 and sealed those making sure not to touch the items that would be in the housings (protecting tolerances).

[ATTACH]24489[/ATTACH]
I added some aluminum parts to some Simple Green to see what would happen. Not much reaction for most stuff but when I scrubbed the speed dial I was amazed to see the paint being uncovered. I shouldn't have assumed it was unsaveable and started picking it out]24493[/ATTACH]
Looking at it I'd swear that the color was orange rather than red. I grabbed a jar (?) of Testor's orange enamel paint and it looked like a match. Much closer to the original knob (left) than that knob is to a newer replacement (right). I'm not sure how I want to go on that; maybe I'll look at the orange on a spare depth dial I have.

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[ATTACH]24491[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]24492[/ATTACH]
I did manager to get some painting done, mainly the exterior of the base assembly and the belt cover that I'd done insides of previously. But I did get the headstock primed in and out and the nuts did weld correctly so the screws would come out.

I chucked up a hard wheel and charged it w/ black emery compound to see what I could get on an unsanded table height knob. Pushing around compound I didn't think I'd done anything but when I wiped it off with a t-shirt scrap I had actually come up to a pretty good shine. I'm not sure how to remove the extra compound from the checkered section though. I'm going to take a spare knob through the sanding all the way up to polish to see what I think of it. That still seems like more than I want but I might go to a non-sanded polish; I'll need to test that too.

The choice is yours, but I do not think polished wingnuts are a good thing. Polished = slick = slippery.


A file works for 'flattening' the tool rest.

[pds0006]

Finished the overall painting with cleanup of badges and dials to be a future project.

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Jonathan putting on the green. Seeing this really gave me a sense of pride.

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Most of the base and headstock assemblies.

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The rest of the base and headstock assemblies.