Shopsmith Forums

My two cents worth here. My 2001 Mark V 520 came with 2 of them that are 3-3/4" long. When I purchased the front rail scale upgrade a couple years ago it came with 2 of them that are 3-3/4" long. So I have 4 all the same length that are over 15 years apart coming from Shopsmith. As for use, 2 are used at a time with one on each corner to align the rail. The alignment height is important to more than just the connector tubes. The fences on my Mark V 520 and Mark 7 have almost no gap so if the rails were to low the fence would not lock into position correctly, I'm guessing. I have not actually tried lowering the rails as much as possible to see. I don't want to have to realign it. I did enough realignments for the SPT mounting posts thread recently.

Is the one DocSurg has an early gauge included to align the rails using a single one before Shopsmith maybe decided it was more cost effective to include the two shorter length ones? That may be answered by when the Mark V 520 DocSurg has was made. Although Shopsmith does change things back and forth from time to time. Maybe someone decided the long piece will work just as well as two shorter ones, so ship it with that instead of cutting two to length. What is the length of that long one?

John,
You said

Yes, there are two different lengths and they are pretty short. I am not sure I would call them different versions, just different lengths and they both come with the 520 pro fence upgrade. The long one is for the main table rails and the short one is for the extension/floating table rails.

I don't know/remember why the long one would not work for the extension/floating tables. It has been a LONG time since I upgraded my 510.

So what were the lengths of the gauges for the upgrade?

David,
None of my 4 alignment gauges have any markings.

Dusty,
Great sketch of where the gauge is used for alignment.

chapmanruss wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:36 pm My two cents worth here. My 2001 Mark V 520 came with 2 of them that are 3-3/4" long. When I purchased the front rail scale upgrade a couple years ago it came with 2 of them that are 3-3/4" long. So I have 4 all the same length that are over 15 years apart coming from Shopsmith. As for use, 2 are used at a time with one on each corner to align the rail. The alignment height is important to more than just the connector tubes. The fences on my Mark V 520 and Mark 7 have almost no gap so if the rails were to low the fence would not lock into position correctly, I'm guessing. I have not actually tried lowering the rails as much as possible to see. I don't want to have to realign it. I did enough realignments for the SPT mounting posts thread recently.

Is the one DocSurg has an early gauge included to align the rails using a single one before Shopsmith maybe decided it was more cost effective to include the two shorter length ones? That may be answered by when the Mark V 520 DocSurg has was made. Although Shopsmith does change things back and forth from time to time. Maybe someone decided the long piece will work just as well as two shorter ones, so ship it with that instead of cutting two to length. What is the length of that long one?

John,
You said

Yes, there are two different lengths and they are pretty short. I am not sure I would call them different versions, just different lengths and they both come with the 520 pro fence upgrade. The long one is for the main table rails and the short one is for the extension/floating table rails.

I don't know/remember why the long one would not work for the extension/floating tables. It has been a LONG time since I upgraded my 510.

So what were the lengths of the gauges for the upgrade?

David,
None of my 4 alignment gauges have any markings.

Dusty,
Great sketch of where the gauge is used for alignment.

OK, I actually have 2 sets. The first one came from when I first upgraded my 510 to a 520. The upgrade came with three jigs. One long one and two short ones. The long one is 9" and the short ones are 3 3/4". I did that upgrade very shortly after the 520 upgrade was introduced. Probably only a few months after the introduction. That should date them.

The second set came with the fence rip scale upgrade. The upgrade consisted of the altered front rails to hold the scale. The upgrade came with two jigs, 3 3/4" long. Again, I performed the upgrade very shortly after it was introduced.

I didn't pull out the instructions for the original upgrade to look but I think I mis-spoke in my earlier post. As I remember the long jig was used in the aux tables and the two short gigs were used on the main table. Of course either way will work and at some point SS decided the long one was not needed. None of mine have any markings.

Thanks for the clarification John. I think that answers it.

Thanks for all of your help -- the drawing is great, Dusty. My rails do look to be a bit off, so this will come in handy....but the floating table tubes are also a bit bent as well. Just more money that SWIMBO will not let me spend.