Shopsmith Forums

The 'best' is that which addresses the problem directly.

I assume the 'high' one is center on the side with the gap and is about .025 too tall.

I do wonder if the castings for the frames have changed putting the plate's mounting tabs closer to the edge thereby ending the need for the spacing washers between the mounting tabs and the plate. I know the casting for the outer frame changed sometime in 1988 or 1989 from having the Magna Logo to the Shopsmith Logo on it. The mounting tabs could have changed at that time too which would explain why the spacing washers were no longer used as shown in the 1/89 Manual. If this is the case anyone needing to replace an older frame with a new one would need to replace both frames as a set. Or is it simply that the plate sits farther back not having the spacing washers and the mounting tabs are in the same place as before. Sorry if this sounds nit picky but I do like to know about changes made to the tools. It makes a difference when replacing parts with newer ones that can be done individually or needs to be done as an assembly or in this case a set of frames.

Casting was changed(19??) to raise the mount thus eliminating the need for the spacers.

It MAY be possible to have a new frame and an older frame coexist (one with spacers,one without). I do not know if the mount change was exactly the washer height.

Good question fer CS!

That may be a good question for Customer Service or maybe not. They have to find that information in reference materials which may not have a detail like that. It may take someone like Jim McCann, Nick Engler, Mike Young or others, which are few, who have been around Shopsmith long enough to know the answer.

chapmanruss wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 1:24 pm That may be a good question for Customer Service or maybe not. They have to find that information in reference materials which may not have a detail like that. It may take someone like Jim McCann, Nick Engler, Mike Young or others, which are few, who have been around Shopsmith long enough to know the answer.

Seems to me it would just be a matter of shimming or filing one to match the other at as close to nominal height as possible. Along with the two spacer washers at each screw, mine was shimmed from the factory in two places. I, unfortunately, am uncertain which two or exactly what was measured to determine shimming was needed. Flatness of the backup plate, maybe.

- David

As long as the tabs for mounting the plate to the frame locations have not changed I guess it would be possible to use an old frame with a new one and use the washers and shims to even the plate height over the mounting tabs.

I have a new 2021 belt sander I purchased as well. Just checked my backup plate is also not flat. In my case it seems to be high only in the middle. Thanks for posts and suggestions in this thread. Haven't decided if I should call support on this yet. I may just add shims to mine to correct the issue.

Just an update on this. I received the belt sander back from Shopsmith. They filed the middle attach point on the casting with the Shopsmith logo because it was proud. With a little more tweaking, I was able to get the backplate within around 0.005" flatness which is good enough for me. It was originally around 0.050" out-of-flat so it is much improved.