Shopsmith planer bed leveling

[dovetaildan]

Got a used Shopsmith Mark V mounted planer that is about 35 years old. Aluminum table bed with steel laminate top. Very happy to find one. I'm at least the 3rd owner of this machine. The infeed part of the bed table is dead flat as is the part under the cutterhead. The outfeed of the table has about a 1/16 of a drop on one side while the other side tapers to being flat with the front/infeed side of the planer. I would like to fix this and end up with a flat table bed on the entire outfeed side.

Was considering replacing the steel laminate with either another piece of sheet steel or a piece of melamine reattached with contact cement. I think that would hold. And also make a nice shiny new table bed. Once I get the old top off though and before attaching the new top I'd need to fix the leveling issue directly on the cast aluminum base. Was thinking of using something like bondo and a sander to gradually level it by hand. Once level then attaching the new laminate top. Thoughts?

Could also try looking into replacing the entire bed but from the looks of it this seems like it would involve tearing down the entire sander.

[br549]

Sounds like what you plan should work. I would prefer a stainless steel final surface in lieu of plastic laminate. For leveling, you might also consider JB Weld. If the existing surface is well attached and was roughened up first to receive some sort of leveling compound, I see no reason to remove it.

Having said that, I question the need to do anything. How flat is the table directly under the outfeed roller? If it is flat under the outfeed roller, any piece of wood with any thickness at all could likely cantilever that 1/16". You could put a stand roller right at the end of the outfeed end to help support any really heavy stock.

To help prevent sniping at the end of the cut, you'll likely want to lift slightly on the end of the stock (at the outfeed end) just as the end on the infeed side approaches the cutterhead.

[RFGuy]

Having said that, I question the need to do anything.

I was debating the same thing. I don't know how much is allowed or expected on the planer bed, so 1/16" may not be a problem. It could be that the OP's concern is a 1/16" drop on the outfeed table side could exacerbate the snipe experienced on the infeed side when the board exits. Only a problem if you rely on the outfeed table solely for support. I slightly lift the board in the infeed side when starting to plane and ever so slightly lift up on the outfeed side when the board is coming out of the planer. See link below for the description from JPG and myself. Also, never measured mine so I don't know how flat it is either - it could have the same 1/16" drop.

viewtopic.php?p=267172#p267172

[JPG]

How are you 'measuring' the drop?

Is it table flatness, or elevator screw height that is causing it?

I suspect the latter.

[dovetaildan]

How are you 'measuring' the drop?

Is it table flatness, or elevator screw height that is causing it?

I was measing the drop by placing my starrett straight edge in the center part of the planer table directly under the cutterhead and measuring drop from there. Essentially I'm just checking it for flatness.

[dovetaildan]

Having said that, I question the need to do anything.

I was debating the same thing.

viewtopic.php?p=267172#p267172

I'm with you and I have not yet done a bunch of real world testing to determine if the bed/table would cause snipe or other issues for example. I'm still in the phase of going over everything really carefully to assess the state of this older machine. It definitely seems to be more of an abnormality since only half of the outfeed table exhibits the drop from my straight edge flatness check.

As this is the markv model which is more likely to get moved around more often it is totally possible there has been a ding or drop in the past that has caused this. Everything else seems to be within spec so far though. I'm willing to invest a bit of time to try and restore this machine if it can be done.

Thanks for the replies and insights.

[dovetaildan]

I ended up disassembling the planer after noticing that the table mounting posts also looked bent. I suspect that may have also occured when the planer table got damaged. So I'll be replacing all 4 table mounting posts...

Since I had the machine apart I tried using a shim and some bessey's to make the planer table level (flat) again. I went very slowly/gradually and it worked really well. Its all but dead flat now and it didn't cause any damage/cracking to the case aluminum either. Very happy with the results here. I won't say I recommend this to others as it could certainly crack the cast aluminum. But I went slowly gradually raising the shim and it seems to have worked out.

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