Share your Magna memorabilia!

[jpdalton]

Sawsmith RAS Add-A-Tool Accessories… from Yuba

Based on the Sawsmith brochures and accessory lists I’ve seen from Yuba Power Products, I’ve always been under the impression that the Add-A-Tool accessories (that allow use of your Shopsmith SPTs on your RAS) were created and offered only by Magna American Corporation.

Well, I was thumbing through a vintage Dealer Binder for the Yuba Sawsmith:

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…and I stumbled on an advertising mat that Yuba offered to local dealers:

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Sure enough, there’s Yuba talking about their Add-A-Tool feature in this September, 1960 printing!

[jpdalton]

Earliest Model 620, Magna 4” Jointer Manual

For anyone fortunate enough to get original documentation included with their acquisition of older Greenie jointers, you typically see something like this:
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…but as Forums contributor Russ Chapman noted in his excellent thread on the history of SPTs
(viewtopic.php?p=285674&sid=8e34e8ec9bd0 ... d9#p285674)
the very first Model 620 manual was derived from the manual created for the Model 4E jointer created for the earlier Model 10ER SHOPSMITH.

I picked up such a manual recently, thinking it was just a print date variant on the more familiar 4E jointer manual. I guess you can understand my confusion!
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Well, it does say “Model 620” on the front
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and does include the handle and mounting differences on the exploded view
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Speaking of mounting, the early Model 620 jointers had a new outfeed table casting (vs. the Model 4E) that included spots for the mounting tubes to be seated, and also included holes to allow mounting on the Model 10ER machines using the early swing-away mounting system designed for the 10ER (and since the Mark 5 had yet to be released at the time of this manual’s printing in December 1953, it makes sense that the manual would feature the jointer mounted to a 10ER…). Eventually when the Power Mount Adapter Kit
(viewtopic.php?p=294841#p294841)
became available, the old swing-away mount was obsolete, and gone were the compatible mounting holes from future Model 620 jointers.

With the release of the Mark 5 on the near horizon, and the manuals for the Add-A-Tool product on the drawing board, this interim Model 620 manual looks like it was a bit rushed, with a couple of errors making it to print:
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I guess we can forgive them for transposing a few parts…

[jpdalton]

“golden accessories” For Your Yuba SHOPSMITH

Yuba freshened up a number of dealer flyers with the introduction of the new “Golden” Mark 5, including this June 1960 SPT accessories sheet.
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And while they did include photographs that clearly show some of the new features of this updated Mark 5 (added table saw slot)…
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…they borrowed at least one graphic from the “Greenie” era (even being black-and-white, this shot shows the castings and sheet metal legs are the same color…)
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Happy Groundhog’s Day everyone!

[jpdalton]

Silver Shopsmith

Anyone ever seen one of these??
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[jpdalton]

What was the first Add-A-Tool??

In his detailed history of accessory SPTs - viewtopic.php?p=285573#p285573 - contributor Russ Chapman notes that they were at one point called “Add-A-Tool”:

We know them now as SPT which stands for Special Purpose Tool. They have also been known as Single Purpose Tool and originally Add-a-Tool.

And while “Add-A-Tool” sounds like a quintessential 1950s marketing device, it was around well before Magna was organized:
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So while not strictly Magna memorabilia (we’ll call it Magna-adjacent!), these shots from Walker-Turner Mfg.’s 1936 Driver Power Tools catalog show efforts to create a multi-tool concept were happening well before Dr. Hans and his team perfected it!

[chapmanruss]

It is true, the Shopsmith Model 10E was not the first multi-function tool. Below is a picture of Goodell's Treadle Lathe with the Scroll Saw attached and the Circular Saw table laying on the Lathe Bed. The Circular Saw was a whopping 3" diameter and mounts where the Scroll Saw is currently mounted in the picture.

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[jpdalton]

Magna Direct Mail Marketing

As you might imagine, I've seen a lot of common items that have survived the decades attached to older Shopsmith machines. And in one form or another, I've seen plenty of these brochures for PTWFE...
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...but I never really knew how owners would get them. Was this something that was picked up from a local retailer? Was it in the packet of documents received with a purchased machine? Was it mailed out??

This sort of thing has been difficult to determine, despite the relative abundance of the flyers, since not a lot of original owners tended to keep the envelopes in which correspondence (like Shop Notes or Shopsmith Shavings) was sent from Magna - at least not a lot have turned up for me.

Well, it turns out these were in fact mailed from Magna (more precisely, Magna Publications) to existing owners, as this recent acquisition shows:
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Unfortunately, this form of mailer went out without any postmark, so the date is anyone's guess (but somewhere near the 1955 copyright date of this edition).

[Matanuska]

My PTFWE is the hardbound version on the right. It was shipped with my Mark 500 when I bought it new in 1985.

[chapmanruss]

That letter from Magna Publications tells a bit of when it may have been mailed. Magna Publications as noted at the bottom of the page is a Division of Magna Power Tool Corporation. Until the beginning of 1956 when the original Magna Enginering Corporation split into two Divisions there was no Magna Power Tool Corporation. In 1958 the company then making the Shopsmith/Magna tools was Yuba Power Products. Isn't history fun?

[patchworks]

Fairly new to the forum & learning so much from all the great posts! When I saw this about Magna mailings, I had to share...I'm in the process of getting ready to refurbish my dad's 10E, S/N 11005, that I believe he acquired in 1953. I say 'believe' because the only clue I have is the original owner's name & address on an original SHOPSMITH SHAVINGS #5, shown here:
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This mailing showed that a man named Leonard, living at the address where I grew up, in 1952 (the date of the mailing) had a SS. My folks bought the house at that address in 1953 from a man named Grass. I believe that Magna just had Leonard's last name wrong on the mailer. Dad passed away in 2016 and at 97, Mom doesn't really remember the particulars about when/how Dad acquired the SS. However, knowing that Mom & Dad bought the house in 1953 from a man whose last name was Grass (not Grace as shown on the mailing), I did some more digging and found Leonard and Beatrice Grass living at the 5109 address in old phone directories from 1948, ‘50, ‘52 & ‘53. Those old directories list people’s occupations and employers...here's the 1953 entry for Leonard Grass:
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It shows that Leonard was a carpenter, so it makes sense that he would’ve had a SS. Why he chose to sell it to my Dad after only having it for 5 years is a bit of a mystery...maybe he didn’t want to have to haul it out of the basement!

This mailing is the only concrete evidence I now have that Dad acquired the 10E from the man he bought the house from. I'm still trying to put the pieces together, but it seems to me that Leonard probably bought the machine new (the other docs I have show it was one of the early Montgomery Ward machines) and then sold it to my dad when he bought the house in 1953. I was born in '54 and grew up with the SS in the basement of our house, literally in the next room to our basement bedroom! So that machine's been part of my life for the last 70 years...now I'm hoping to clean it up and continue to use it for the rest of my years!

Note that I'm putting together a more complete history of the machine that I will post soon...