Time for a new main table?

[DLB]

The bill (a feeler gauge) is used to maintain a small gap so that when the table is locked (table tilt) the table does not bind when tilted.

I'm still not understanding this part. Where is that gap created while we are securing what? Looking at the diagram I'm thinking a gap between the trunnions (both?) and 'brake surfaces' on the tie bar while bolting the trunnions to the table. And we are satisfied that the gap does not negatively impact tilt lock? Even if that's correct I can't tell exactly when, in the slot alignment procedure (?) I'd utilize the feeler gauge. (Cuz in the step that makes sense to me, the tilt lock is engaged which will crush my feeler gauge, changing its effective thickness if I use a bill. Leading me to think my whole premise is wrong.)

Is this from a sawdust session?

- David

[rpd]

The bill (a feeler gauge) is used to maintain a small gap so that when the table is locked (table tilt) the table does not bind when tilted.

I'm still not understanding this part. Where is that gap created while we are securing what? Looking at the diagram I'm thinking a gap between the trunnions (both?) and 'brake surfaces' on the tie bar while bolting the trunnions to the table. And we are satisfied that the gap does not negatively impact tilt lock? Even if that's correct I can't tell exactly when, in the slot alignment procedure (?) I'd utilize the feeler gauge. (Cuz in the step that makes sense to me, the tilt lock is engaged which will crush my feeler gauge, changing its effective thickness if I use a bill. Leading me to think my whole premise is wrong.)

Is this from a sawdust session?

- David

Yes, Sawdust session #1
http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Arch ... gnment.htm

[JPG]

I do not think the thickness of the feeler gauge(dollar bill) matters as long as it is > 0. The purpose of it all is to eliminate(minimize) any interference as the table is tilted(aligns the mating trunion parts).

Now as for the effect upon table top flatness, I simply have my doubts.(due no doubt to lack of first hand experience) Ditto shim washers.

However when things do not align perfectly SOMETHING has to move.

[tbolish]

I want to first say thanks to the folks on this forum who have shared so much wisdom and knowledge about these machines and woodworking.

I’m probably going to piss everyone off by saying this but this is just complete BS. Although I bought mine used, this machine is a frankly a terrible table saw. I know I’m going to get a lot of flack for saying this from all the true shopsmith believers but i have spent so much more time working on the machine than actually making productive woodworking projects. Not just by repairing a very poorly maintained tool, but by how much time is spent trying to get reasonably accurate, repeatable cuts; but also factoring in time switching between modes and then having to align yet again because I simply don’t trust the machine.

It just adds insult to injury when one keeps finding defects one after another in the workmanship. My table might just be a bad batch, as (I believe my trunnion holes are also mis-sized making parallel blade alignment difficult), but having a warped table on a table saw is just ridiculous. I honestly don’t care about the physics of how have a warped table shouldn’t really matter...but in my amateur mind I still feel the table saw is the heart of a workshop, and the damn table should be flat from the factory. Period.

Yay, it takes up a lot less space than all the multiple tools...but it honestly just sucks. It’s a cool idea, and I’m sure some of you guys actually have built some nice things with them, but how at what cost of time spent (not to mention the fact that some of you guys bought them new and spent $$$$ on the machines)

If anyone wants a machine with a completely rebuilt headstock (all new bearings and belts from Jacob Anderson), jointer, bandsaw, and dust collector in addition to all the extra goodies in Southern California let me know.


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[RFGuy]

I want to first say thanks to the folks on this forum who have shared so much wisdom and knowledge about these machines and woodworking.

I’m probably going to piss everyone off by saying this but this is just complete BS. Although I bought mine used, this machine is a frankly a terrible table saw. I know I’m going to get a lot of flack for saying this from all the true shopsmith believers but i have spent so much more time working on the machine than actually making productive woodworking projects. Not just by repairing a very poorly maintained tool, but by how much time is spent trying to get reasonably accurate, repeatable cuts; but also factoring in time switching between modes and then having to align yet again because I simply don’t trust the machine.

It just adds insult to injury when one keeps finding defects one after another in the workmanship. My table might just be a bad batch, as (I believe my trunnion holes are also mis-sized making parallel blade alignment difficult), but having a warped table on a table saw is just ridiculous. I honestly don’t care about the physics of how have a warped table shouldn’t really matter...but in my amateur mind I still feel the table saw is the heart of a workshop, and the damn table should be flat from the factory. Period.

Yay, it takes up a lot less space than all the multiple tools...but it honestly just sucks. It’s a cool idea, and I’m sure some of you guys actually have built some nice things with them, but how at what cost of time spent (not to mention the fact that some of you guys bought them new and spent $$$$ on the machines)

If anyone wants a machine with a completely rebuilt headstock (all new bearings and belts from Jacob Anderson), jointer, bandsaw, and dust collector in addition to all the extra goodies in Southern California let me know.


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Well, I am not a "Shopsmith True Believer", but I will share my honest opinion here. Like any tool, there are pros and cons to adapting the Shopsmith system. Calling it a system here because that is really what it is, i.e. many tools designed to go together and work well together as a system. I have discussed this on previous threads (https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/view ... er#p257024) previously, but I would tend to agree with you on the weaknesses of using the table saw function of the Mark V. Personally, I would love to have a pro level cabinet table saw, but I can't fit it in my one car garage shop. If I had started with a cabinet saw before ever getting a Shopsmith, I probably would have done a compact garage shop similar to what Blake Weber has:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kErNwKA-Ao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jFFDR_mAV4&t=77s

When you have a small shop, like my one car garage, the Shopsmith system can be very effective. Is it a pain to change over between different modes? Yes. Is it better than a good 10-20 year cabinet table saw? No. However, when you own multiple SPT's and leverage this with the Mark V headstock, the Shopsmith system makes it bearable to do woodworking in a small shop. Unfortunately for me, I purchased everything new, so it is impossible for me to move out of the Shopsmith system without taking a huge loss on my equipment. If you have purchased all used Shopsmith equipment AND if you are not happy with it, I would recommend considering separates instead. You should be able to recoup most, if not all, of your money spent on Shopsmith equipment. Just keep in mind though, there are pros and cons to every tool purchase. As a system, a Shopsmith Mark V does many woodworking tasks well...just don't expect it to be equivalent to a high end separate for each task.

[JPG]

Before you tear the towel all to shreds before pitching it, do contact SS regarding the 'warped' table if you are sure it had not been damaged by something a PO did.

They have been known to replace defective ones regardless of who/when it was purchased.

Some where here there is a description of what SS considers flat enough to be(as well as not flat enough). Your earlier pix I do believe exceeds unflat threshold.

Read Farmer's signature line regarding 'mode' changes.

Yes a SS requires greater planning because of them.

Some of us have solved that 'issue' by owning more than one SS.

I do not think there is one person on this forum that thinks the SS is 'perfect', but it IS a good jack of all trades.

Personally I do not think stand alone tools are 'flexible' enough.(pun NOT intended) Especially a drill press.

[reible]

You certainly have had a lot of issues with your shopsmith.

I have 6 shopsmiths, I got one for one of my brothers and each of my 2 sons have them. All together I have had far less issues then you have had on this one machine. I can understand why you see it the way you see it.

I can say that I think if you had someone to mentor you and give you some hands on help this would have gone a lot differently.

I've always been mechanically inclined and have worked as a carpenters helper, and worked in a machine shop. I went back to school out of the Army and spent 28 years as an engineer. Now that I'm retired I spend more then a few hours on woodworking and related tasks.

I got my first shopsmith in 1976 factory fresh. I had a rockwell table saw at the time and kept it only for a short while after and then parted with it. The machine has performed far better then I had expected and it was a few years back when shopsmith was struggling that I decided to buy a basket case 510 to have as a second machine. The mitergauge had been cut, the fence had saw marks, paint spills on the main table, saw blade was mounted backwards and used that way???? Quill would not lock and maybe a few other issues.....

Just before that purchase I upgraded my 500 to a 520. I had been upgrading all along the way so this was the next logical step. I would not want to know how many $$ I had put into upgrades but lets just say it was a lot. Keep in mind things like carbide saw blades were far from the norm so even that was an upgrade. Like wise I got some of the SPT's and even some of them had upgrades over the year.

The 510 need some care and some new parts but it finally got back to being a second machine. There were two things, first trying to get the 510 alignment was never something I was happy with, and second now that I had a 520 system the 510 was just not as nice. So again more money but I went ahead and upgraded the 510 to a 520. And as it turned out the table mount had the smaller holes so while I could get it to align it wasn't easy. Solution was to drill then holes out. That fixed that.

The 510 table was the one with the whole table having the grooves, I like the new table for the 500 to 520 kit so I replaced the table. Another issue that came up was getting the fixed extension tables and being able to use them on either side. Couldn't get that to work so I got two more fixed tables, one aligned for the right and one aligned for the left. Yes more $$.

Well I could go on and on but lets just say I have purchased two mark 7 kits and two powerpro upgrades.

I don't have a nice shop to work in so the shopsmith get dragged out on to the driveway to be used. I've had a shopsmith that use to live at a house we had in the UP of MI, it moved there, it moved to my brothers then back here. Never went out alignment. Like wise the 520 was aligned when I did the M7 upgrade and that has to be a few years now, still in alignment.

I have never had an issue with change overs, but I will say it nice to have one of my shopsmiths always in drill press mode. I could live with only one machine but why.

One of my 520's is set up with a saw train system, I can dial in cuts to .001" but of course the wood moves so that is overkill most of the time.

The whole trick to using these machine as well as most other machine is to make jigs. The PTWFE has a bunch you can make, a lot of others are here on the forum. Which then brings up the forum, good luck finding as much knowledge and people willing to share on other tool web sites.

I'm not trying to defend what has happened to you and your shopsmith but I can say I've had a pretty positive experience with mine and I'm sorry you have not.

Ed

[dusty]

I want to first say thanks to the folks on this forum who have shared so much wisdom and knowledge about these machines and woodworking.

I’m probably going to piss everyone off by saying this but this is just complete BS. Although I bought mine used, this machine is a frankly a terrible table saw. I know I’m going to get a lot of flack for saying this from all the true shopsmith believers but i have spent so much more time working on the machine than actually making productive woodworking projects. Not just by repairing a very poorly maintained tool, but by how much time is spent trying to get reasonably accurate, repeatable cuts; but also factoring in time switching between modes and then having to align yet again because I simply don’t trust the machine.

It just adds insult to injury when one keeps finding defects one after another in the workmanship. My table might just be a bad batch, as (I believe my trunnion holes are also mis-sized making parallel blade alignment difficult), but having a warped table on a table saw is just ridiculous. I honestly don’t care about the physics of how have a warped table shouldn’t really matter...but in my amateur mind I still feel the table saw is the heart of a workshop, and the damn table should be flat from the factory. Period.

Yay, it takes up a lot less space than all the multiple tools...but it honestly just sucks. It’s a cool idea, and I’m sure some of you guys actually have built some nice things with them, but how at what cost of time spent (not to mention the fact that some of you guys bought them new and spent $$$$ on the machines)

If anyone wants a machine with a completely rebuilt headstock (all new bearings and belts from Jacob Anderson), jointer, bandsaw, and dust collector in addition to all the extra goodies in Southern California let me know.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I happen to disagree with much of your assessment of the Shopsmith table saw but your opinion does NOT piss me off. I just wish something reasonable could be done to resolve the shortcomings that you are experiencing. I have three table set ups and none of them exhibit issues to the degree you seem to have. This makes me believe that you have a table that has been damaged as opposed to being typical.

As for the trunnion holes, there was a period of time when some of use believed that the trunnion holes should be enlarged so that the table could be moved around more for alignment. I for one did that on two of my three sets of trunnions. The third table has unmolested trunnions. All three tables can be aligned very accurated (+- .005) and I used to verify that regulary. No more. I have come to realize that holding that sort of tolerance for wood working is totally unneccessary. I have posted many threads here on the forum about this procedure and if you go way, way back and search for a few of them you will see that I have run the entire gambit. Close enough for Government work is almost good enough these days. The one issue to be avoided (in my opinion) is tolerating any misalignment that could cause kickback.

I hope you don't give up on this quest.

This group can help you resolve jsu about anything that goes wrong with your machine.

If you are going to buy used - avoid buying unseen!!!!

[BuckeyeDennis]

I want to first say thanks to the folks on this forum who have shared so much wisdom and knowledge about these machines and woodworking.

I’m probably going to piss everyone off by saying this but this is just complete BS. Although I bought mine used, this machine is a frankly a terrible table saw. I know I’m going to get a lot of flack for saying this from all the true shopsmith believers but i have spent so much more time working on the machine than actually making productive woodworking projects. Not just by repairing a very poorly maintained tool, but by how much time is spent trying to get reasonably accurate, repeatable cuts; but also factoring in time switching between modes and then having to align yet again because I simply don’t trust the machine.

It just adds insult to injury when one keeps finding defects one after another in the workmanship. My table might just be a bad batch, as (I believe my trunnion holes are also mis-sized making parallel blade alignment difficult), but having a warped table on a table saw is just ridiculous. I honestly don’t care about the physics of how have a warped table shouldn’t really matter...but in my amateur mind I still feel the table saw is the heart of a workshop, and the damn table should be flat from the factory. Period.

Yay, it takes up a lot less space than all the multiple tools...but it honestly just sucks. It’s a cool idea, and I’m sure some of you guys actually have built some nice things with them, but how at what cost of time spent (not to mention the fact that some of you guys bought them new and spent $$$$ on the machines)

If anyone wants a machine with a completely rebuilt headstock (all new bearings and belts from Jacob Anderson), jointer, bandsaw, and dust collector in addition to all the extra goodies in Southern California let me know.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

First of all, let me assure that I’m also in no way PO’d by your post.

My model 520 was in pretty good condition when I bought it used. But it had been broken down for shipment, so the first order of business was to study the instructions, assemble it, and do a full alignment. I’ve never had any significant problems with it in the ensuing eight years. While I can’t quite match reible for accuracy, I can hold 005” any day of the week, and more often than not on the first try.

As for setups and changeovers, I love being able to do them. Nothing is more versatile than a Shopsmith, and it will still come in handy for some things even if you have a whole shop full of stand-alone machines. But I hate having to do changeovers. So in the years since I bought my SS, I’ve bought several stand-alone machines, a Shopsmith 10E, and a Shopsmith 10ER.

One of those stand-alone machines is a 5 hp Powermatic PM2000 cabinet saw. I bought it at auction, still factory-banded on a pallet. And mostly because it’s a 3-phase machine, I got it for about $0.25 on the dollar. So I spent $200 on a rotary-phase converter panel to generate 3-phase power, and found a free idler motor to go with it. I got the 500 lb. cabinet saw moved to my basement workshop, assembled it, and found that the table & wings were flat to within 0.002” with no shimming. It’s an entirely different class of machine.

Guess what — five years have gone by, and I STILL don’t have that machine under power. For which I swear at myself everytime I have to change over my 520. Especially given than I’m an electrical engineer. But I can always make the cut that I need with sufficient accuracy on my 520, and in a lot less time than the couple of days it would take me to install a new subpanel and wire up that RPC.

Ditto for changing over to drill-press mode, as compared to finishing reconditioning my 10ER that’s earmarked for that.

A Shopsmith has a steeper learning curve than most stand-alone machines, but that’s mostly because it can do so much more. Ditto for alignment procedures. But once you are up those curves, it is a fine machine. Not perfect, mind you, because being both portable and multi-function requires tradeoffs. But you simply have an unusually defective or damaged table.

BTW, I do enjoy being able to roll my 520 outdoors to work on a pretty day. Especially if I’m going to make a huge pile of chips while turning a bowl. I just blow them into the woods with a leaf blower, and cleanup is done.

[DLB]

I respect your opinion on this, it in no way pisses me off either. I'm a little disappointed in a couple of aspects and I'm hopeful that you will give your decision a little more thought before you commit to it. My opinion is completely different than yours, but in my pre-500 days I thought the first thing I would buy when I could would be a better stand-alone table saw. The 520 completely changed my view, I would take a 520 or M7 over any portable table saw I have seen. And in fairness to the other portables out there, the SS is several times more expensive. Even a decent used 15 year old 520 costs maybe double what a typical saw, in what I see as the competitive category (portables) costs new. And you've been talking crosscuts, so while my 510 knowledge is extremely limited I know it should be just as good on crosscuts.

Re-reading this thread from the beginning. I see where I personally went wrong. While yours is bowed in the same areas as mine it is bowed in the opposite direction. I think mine was caused by abuse or misuse, it is in the location and direction you'd get if you pressed really hard with the quill. Emphasis on really hard, I straightened mine to a large degree so I know how much force it takes to bend the table enough for a permanent set. Yours is bowed in the same area, but upward. I think that will negatively impact just about every crosscut you can make, assuming that area is high in relation to the right side of the table.

Part of me is cautiously optimistic that you have found the problem at exactly the same time that you've run out of patience, and that maybe we can ask you to give it another look. If it was me, I'd do the following series of tests and then communicate the results back to the forum for analysis:

1) Observe flatness left to right on your table in a few locations. If the high spot on the left creates the appearance of a low spot on the right, that is a problem unless it is tiny. Pick the worst spot, photograph it and measure it if possible.

2) Loosen the tilt lock. Holding the table in the 0 degree position, repeat the above measurement in the worst spot.

3) Loosen the table/trunnion mounting bolts. Repeat the measurement.

Question for someone with the right background to know: When I worked my table on the bench, I observed that it would flex under moderate pressure, but when the pressure was removed the table would return to its previous state. It took much more pressure, and much more bend, to create a new "set." My question - if the table was held in a bowed state by moderate pressure, but over a very long period of time, would it take on a set? Or to simplify, is time a factor? (I've read things that would imply it is a factor, but have not observed it. An example is that many believe that a firearm magazine spring will lose its effectiveness if maintained in a compressed state.)

- David