Forum sections - suggestion

[RobertTaylor]

thanks for the compliments guys.

dusty, indeed i do have all these pieces of equipment here in my basement. two of the shopsmiths have been taken apart and are stacked around the basement. i use the two mini's and the '84 500 the most. i also had a nice 1957 greenie that my son has, he loves it. by the way he lives almost in reible's back yard. (minooka, il.) will be there for christmas. bob

[W3DRM]

Bob,

Congratulations, great looking pens - I think you are hooked on Pen Turning It just happens from what I have seen...

[Greenvilleguy]

Betty,

Great looking pens.

Now back to the original purpose of this thread -- I would like to see a special "Turner's corner" section to the forum. I believe that there are two types of Shopsmith owner's on the forum -- Those who love to turn and those that haven't discovered it yet.

A special Turner's corner might help both. While pens are fun, easy and useful; there are countless under possibilities for turners and the best part is that the wood is often free!

Speaking of Woodcraft classes, I took one this month on turning minitures. Talk about impractical, but fun. Here are a goblet and a oval bowl turned during the class from shrub prunings. The other students were able to get very thin stems on their goblets, but after blowing out three; I left the fourth one fat.

[ATTACH]744[/ATTACH]

[ralphtaff]

OK, Here goes i have tried to post and did not get that many reply s. the ones i got were good for someone that knew a bit about the ss. I know squat about it except how to turn on the machine. i have read the manual two or three times. i have an old manual from magna corp. the parts have magna on them so i know it is the right ones. i have a jigsaw,jointer,paint machine,saw,turning accessory's,sander, bunch of arbers some look like ss and others look like some bought at the hardware store. i read it is not safe to use other then ss arbors so now i am afraid to use it with comfort. i expect it to come apart. the speed dialer works but the speed only works part o way. I was asked for more information. if i knew more about it i would probably figure it out my self. Its like taking a person that never seen electricity and any modern conveniences and then expect him to figure it out. i am not giving up just yet. after reading above more category's are needed. i read about the 510,520 and so on but very little about the 500. Nothing on the 510 and so no is the same on the 500. starting from the logo cover to size of motor, to fence,what is a t-slot? i do not have one on my 500. none of my other table saws have a t-slot. I had to ask the middle school shop teacher what the hell was a t-slot. after i got my answer i seen some pictures on the form what a t-slot was. I asked shopsmith on the telephone if there were any blogs or something where owners of ss discussed there problems and i was told about ssusers.org. She never mentioned about this one. I had to ask three times for a catalog to order parts. I finally got one then i seen this forum in the book so now i have been lurking about reading and wasting my time reading any thing and every thing to get educated on the shop smith machine. even if i do not have a 510 or above. I ordered the dvd by rick davis it is great. now that is what i am talking about. now i feel i might get to fix my macine and start making sawdust again. thank god i did not get rid if my stand alone tools when i got my shop smith. maybe this year will be better for my shop smith.

[charlese]

Hi there ralphtaf! Now that you know what a T slot is, and you have Rick's DVD you are on the right road. Also I recommend you go to the "Search" word on the red line (above the posts) - click on search - type in the word sheavesand click "GO". If you read through the 1st two posts (yielded by the search) you will find another plethora of information. Especially the 1st post by Nick in the second thread titled "Speed Control and Frightening Noises"

[a1gutterman]

Hi ralphtaff,

Pleased that you are here. I reviewed your posts up to date, there are four of them, and except for the fourth one, did not find any specific questions? I am not sure what responses you were looking for, but when you have a specific question a number of helpful forum members will be jumping at the chance to help you:D .

[paulmcohen]

There were some machines before the 500 that you might have, the best way to find out about your machine is to enter the serial number into the Shopsmith site and get information about the year it was made and the model.

Basically the 500 is the older machine which came with one of two motors (3/4 HP and 1 1/8 HP) a small saw table and a toggle switch.

At some point the sanding disk was upgraded from aluminum to Steel and the 505/510/520 have a dust collector/guard for it.

The 510 was the first "upgrade" which at some point added a two bearing quill, bigger tables, bigger fence, more safety features, finally the 520 added a much better fence and the option of adding a rip scales.

The 505 was a less expensive 510 without some tables.

It is a little complicated to know exactly someone started with because changes were added mid-stream and upgrades have been available for a long time. Today I own a 520, but in ~1980 I purchased a 500 and have continued to upgrade it over the years.

If you compare my 520 to one purchased today you would notice I have a different switch and am missing a guard over the rear power shafts. But other 520's might be missing my rip scales and have a new switch.

If you have a 500 or later you can virtually upgrade to the latest machine or use it the way it is if you don't need the extra features, if you have something older than a 500 I can't be of much help.

[ralphtaff]

To Tim you are right. I did not post any questions.I was a little bit leery of it because of the other forum, they are on a discussion of corded versus batteries now and nothing about the ss. oh well this is better. to Paul what you wrote was great it brought me up to what is what and how come. Now i understand why every one talks about the 510 and above. When i bought the 500 i thought i was in heaven but after reading posts i was starting to wonder if i did wrong but now i understand. NOW FOR MY FIRST QUESTION. On the quill,it does not have any tension on it at all. I took it apart and tried to get some tension on it to no avail.I watched the video on line for the quill and it seems that the spring maybe is disconnected. As i turn it to get tension it seems to slip or something. When i took it apart the first time it did not have any tension on it, I cleaned it real good and it slides real nice now. If the spring is broke or disconnected how do you take it apart and fix it or replace it. I have not opened it up to look in it as in the past when i opened up something to fix something i end up spending for a professional to come and fix what should be an easy fix. I still will try some time. check out {Family Woodworking ] it has different categories and real easy to find things i spend a lot of time there.

[a1gutterman]

Hi ralphtaff,

I am glad that you have posted a question:

MY FIRST QUESTION. On the quill,it does not have any tension on it at all. I took it apart and tried to get some tension on it to no avail.I watched the video on line for the quill and it seems that the spring maybe is disconnected. As i turn it to get tension it seems to slip or something. When i took it apart the first time it did not have any tension on it, I cleaned it real good and it slides real nice now. If the spring is broke or disconnected how do you take it apart and fix it or replace it.

Fortunately for me, I have not had to repair my quill and do not have an answer for you. At this point you have several options, some of which are; 1) You can wait for someone here to try and help you, and I am sure someone will (You should probably repost your question on the General Woodworking section rather then here in the Community section; you may get a faster answer); 2) You can call customer service @ 1 800 762 7555 and they will help you; 3) You can do a search on this site (on the tool bar at the top is a search button). I know that there are plenty of threads and posts concerning the quill. I hope this has been helpful:) .

[roy_okc]

I'd certainly like to see a separate wood turning forum here on Shopsmith.net. I've been turning a little over a year, mostly pens and other small things, plus a couple lamps and what slightly resembles a bowl. I feel that I'm about ready to start on larger items such as bowls that actually look like bowls, hollow forms, etc. I think that a dedicated forum here would help SS turners learn and progress in the art of turning.

Roy