Shopsmith Forums

cooch366 wrote:I've aquired an electric wheelchair when moving into a new house, pretty beat but still works.

I was thinking of mounting some sort of bench to it and be able to "wheel" it around the shop.

I'd love to hear any other ideas / possibilities!

Sorry just relalized I'm kinda off the original post. Sorry

So What!:D;)

Natural progression - Hospital table Wheel chair:)

cooch366 wrote:...
Sorry just relalized I'm kinda off the original post. Sorry

Not at all!
Always interesting, imho, when the reader dost wax nostalgic.

cooch366 wrote:I've aquired an electric wheelchair when moving into a new house, pretty beat but still works.

I was thinking of mounting some sort of bench to it and be able to "wheel" it around the shop.

I have a dutch acquaintance a few villages away who runs a factory making wooden tool sheds/garden houses. I go there to pick up huge amounts of saw dust/wood shavings to use for my chickens, garden, etc. He is also in the antiques trading business, including sort of industrial antiques. One day while driving over there I came upon him going down the street in one of those electric wheel chairs. I pulled up to him and and with great concern asked him "Johnny, what's wrong? Did you break a leg?" He just smiled and replied that he got it in a lot of old stuff he bought, and it works great for getting around the village quickly. They are faster than walking, and cheap to run until you need to buy a new traction battery...

but to give an on topic reply... My way tubes were terribly corroded in two spots where my mother had decided to leave a jug of muriatic acid sitting on them for a year (I live in another country, so only last winter did I discover this "sin", now the Shopsmith is safely with me...) Don't leave muriatic (hydrochloric) acid near any steel. Even with the cap on vapours escape from the jug. If you must store the stuff, make some sort of small wooden shed outside with a locking door and use that for acids and other really nasty stuff, better than leaving them anywhere in your workshop.

The rust was removed with a combination of sand paper and rust removing fluid (probably containing phosphoric acid, but its a Slovak brand anyway so you aren't going to run into it). Had I had on hand a large enough PVC pipe I would have considered doing electrolytic rust removal, which works wonders.

Once it was cleaned off, as I didn't have any paste wax, I heated up the way tubes and rubbed on beeswax. It works, certainly in preventing any new rust, but it doesn't seem optimal for sliding. As I also shoot black powder, I may try using the traditional lard/beeswax bullet lube which I think would work better.

Since the weight of the headstock and carriage rests more on the top of the tubes, I find I can sometimes rotate each tube to get a cleaner part of the tube on top as the bottom of tube makes little contact.

freedomlives wrote:but to give an on topic reply... My way tubes were terribly corroded in two spots where my mother had decided to leave a jug of muriatic acid sitting on them for a year (I live in another country, so only last winter did I discover this "sin", now the Shopsmith is safely with me...) Don't leave muriatic (hydrochloric) acid near any steel. Even with the cap on vapours escape from the jug. If you must store the stuff, make some sort of small wooden shed outside with a locking door and use that for acids and other really nasty stuff, better than leaving them anywhere in your workshop.

The rust was removed with a combination of sand paper and rust removing fluid (probably containing phosphoric acid, but its a Slovak brand anyway so you aren't going to run into it). Had I had on hand a large enough PVC pipe I would have considered doing electrolytic rust removal, which works wonders.

Once it was cleaned off, as I didn't have any paste wax, I heated up the way tubes and rubbed on beeswax. It works, certainly in preventing any new rust, but it doesn't seem optimal for sliding. As I also shoot black powder, I may try using the traditional lard/beeswax bullet lube which I think would work better.

I am not gonna ask you if you obtained yer beeswax indoors of outdoors, but it does not like low temperatures. You may need to rethink this in February unless yer shop is environmentally controlled.

JPW is paste floor wax. The old slippery kind. There gotta be some Slovak making it 'over there'.


Now about bees wax removal. . .

When Shopsmith had their outlet stores I bought a can of Trewax for my tools. The can is big enough that I probably have 3 life times supply. We have an oak table and we bought a cleaner wax for it that is in a spray can. It has bees wax and I don't remember what else but it is slick. If you rest on the table with your elbows you will probably end up on your chin. I put some of this on my way tube and you can slide the head stock with one finger. How long it will last I don't know but I will apply it again

sawmill wrote:When Shopsmith had their outlet stores I bought a can of Trewax for my tools. The can is big enough that I probably have 3 life times supply. We have an oak table and we bought a cleaner wax for it that is in a spray can. It has bees wax and I don't remember what else but it is slick. If you rest on the table with your elbows you will probably end up on your chin. I put some of this on my way tube and you can slide the head stock with one finger. How long it will last I don't know but I will apply it again

Table wax is soft(bees wax?).

Floor wax is hard(carnuba).

Cleaner wax - alias for dirt embeder. Where does the dirt 'cleaned' from the table go? Not all goes to the rag.

I picked up a can for $5.99 and will use it on the tubes. I also found Barkeepers Friend in liquid form to use on the aluminum parts. Is that the correct solution?
Thanks!