Shopsmith as a dual arm saw

truxton · Post by **truxton** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 3:36 pm

Just a thought, has anyone ever used a shopsmith as a dual arm saw. I was thinking a set up like a panel saw, useing the frame tubes to guide a power tool like a skil saw or router? Seems like it would be helpfull when struggling with large or over sized panels. [ATTACH]10733[/ATTACH]

keakap · Post by **keakap** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 9:22 pm

DANG! what a nifty idea!
But phooey-- I ran down to the shop and measured, and son of a gun the space between ends isn't big enough for a full panel.
But still, after the first rip...

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 6:22 am

I guess I have no imagination. How could the Shopsmith be used in this fashion. The saw blade and the tunes are in perpendicular planes to one another.

If the idea is to use the tubes and remount something on those tubes I see that. A good example would be the saw table at Home Depot.

riot_nrrd · Post by **riot_nrrd** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 7:48 am

Hmmm... I think if you were going to do that, youd need to remove the headstock and carraige... and I'm also not sure if you would have enough room for the sheet plus the sawblade plus the saw... but a interesting idea. Let everyone know if you come up with anything.

Ron309753 · Post by **Ron309753** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 8:33 am

I was intrigued by this. I had never heard of a dual arm saw, so I checked into it. That saw is made by SawTrax and features the Makita 5402N circular saw with a 16 5/16” blade. That’s why it can crosscut 6” thick stock, and costs around 3 grand.

I think if you were going to make this with an ordinary 7¼” saw, or even a 10” saw, I think you would save time and money, and have more functionality with a good radial arm saw, or even a sliding miter saw. Or get the Milwaukee Panel saw: http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... DAQ8wIwAA#

Sincerely,

Ron309753

jtime101 · Post by **jtime101** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:27 am

I think this would be a great setup if you were doing dados in the sides of book shelves for the shelves to sit in. You could easily mount the router on the top way tubes and have it travel from side to side with a straight cut bit set at the right depth across anywhere from 12" to 24" panels with out removing anything from the unit. You could use your bench tubes as the support table with rollers on the front and back for support. It would take a little time to make a mount but after that you would have a nice setup.

Ed in Tampa · Post by **Ed in Tampa** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:26 pm

Its called a high quality radial arm saw.

truxton · Post by **truxton** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 5:52 pm

Thanks for the positive responses on the Jig idea of a Shopsmith dual arm saw. I have a friend who is a hydraulic engineer, he works for a compnay here who builds and designs hydraulic systems. I ran it past him and he liked the idea and agreed to design and build a bearing slideing table to fit the Shopsmith way tubes. He indicated to me the cost to build this including the 4 way tubes would be minimal. I recently bought from E-Bay the two end casting of a MKVII for $35.00. Not alot different for this purpose than the MKV. What I plan on doing is setting this up as a seperate jig from my shopsmith. What I see as the funtion of this jig is to be able to mount several of my hand power tools to the slideing table. To cross cut larger panels with a skil saw, a guide for my router and with a chainsaw firmly mounted to the slideing table, a horizontal mill to cut short logs. We have a bunch of spalted maple rounds for boxes and the only way I have been able to cut these from logs with the chainsaw is free hand. With this set up and with the firewood round firmly attached to a pair of sturdy saw horses I should be able to cut 6" parallel cants for resawing on the bandsaw. I would love to hear any of your feedback on this. Thanks

truxton · Post by **truxton** » Sat Oct 30, 2010 8:45 am

I spotted this on another woodworking site. Looks like the concept would work with the shopsmith way tubes. This jig is being used to plane a long wood slab.[ATTACH]10743[/ATTACH]

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Sat Oct 30, 2010 2:01 pm

truxton wrote:I spotted this on another woodworking site. Looks like the concept would work with the shopsmith way tubes. This jig is being used to plane a long wood slab.[ATTACH]10743[/ATTACH]

If you decide to try this, use Model 10 tubes(twice as thick!)

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Shopsmith as a dual arm saw

Shopsmith as a dual arm saw

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