Shopsmith Forums

putttn

I'm not sure you can draw any conclusions from these observations. Ask a guy who has a tool box full of Craftsman tools what sort of wrench to buy and he probably won't tell you Snapon. Ask a guy who drives a big Ford what sort of truck to buy and he probably won't tell you Toyota.

Ask a guy who has just paid $2000 to get a transmission rebuilt in a car that bearly has breakin mileage and he'll probably advise against the model that he just repaired.

My Shopsmith satisfies almost all of my woodworking needs within the economic and geographic constraints that have been imposed. I, therefore, am a satisfied Shopsmith user.

Come back and ask again when in the same week I am forced to buy a new motor ($300), the bearings go out in the quill and I discover the way tubes are bent. You'll get a different assessment. I'll be even more dsisatisfied when I call the company to order repair parts and am told that "we don't provide support to that product line any longer" , "you'll have to contact this other guy down the street, he might be able to get those for you".

That happens at DeWalt, Black and Decker, Ryobi, even Porter Cable and others. The other guy is referred to as a Service Agent but he is still a provider that you are forced to go to and not one you chose.

That has been the one of the reasons why I enjoy my Shopsmith. It is also one of the reasons that makes the financial staus of Shopsmith (as reported in another thread) somewhat distressing.
___________________
Making Sawdust Safely

I have to totally agree with you guys about this assinine trend towards gettings handtools (planes and such) and machinery adjusted to a tolerance of a thousandth of an inch. This is a REAL SORE POINT WITH ME!:mad: Why? Whywhywhywhwywhy?!? Yeah, Felder, Robland, Minimax are all excellent, well built machines. I don't need one, nor want one. My handplanes and chisels are sharp enough to...? You guessed it!! Plane and chisel wood!! I'm amazed at some of the experts out there that say you MUST have a plane so sharp that it HAS to cut a near microscopically thin shaving! Or the experts that say that your miter gauge MUST be square to the sawblade with a tolerance of a thousandth of an inch or you're working with junk! I absolutely will not spend $150 on a miter gauge! Nor will I spend anywhere from $300-$500 on a Lie Neilsen hand plane! I figure my flea market clunkers, cleaned up and sharpened, will (and DO) work just fine! If a craftsman in the 18 or 1900's could make masterpieces with those tools, then I can make my furniture with those tools. Don't get me wrong, a Lie Neilsen is a beautiful plane and feels wonderful in the hand, but it's just not necessary. These "experts" or "elite woodworkers", I call them wood snobs who forget where they came from. I've had the misfortune to meet a couple of them. Man! Talk about getting talked down to!! Now, of course, the majority of the pros I've talked to/learned from have been down to earth guys like us! Unfortunately, it seems like the snobs get all of the attention and their word is taken as gospel and joe blow woodworker who just wants to help his boy or girl do a Scouting project gets totally discouraged and gives up! The wood snobs that really get me going are the ones that "name" their project something totally off the wall like "Bear Walking in the Stream" (for a chair), or "Wind in Willow" (for a box), etc. Those're two examples I know of personally. It's a CHAIR, for cryin' out loud!! Actually, I sat in it and it wasn't very comfortable, anyway.
Whew. I gotta calm down. Sorry fellas. If I've offended anyone, I apologize. This subject just burns me up.
Anyway, puttn, half the fun of woodworking is putting together your shop. It might be a part of your garage and you go 100% SS, it could be like mine with both SS and stand alone, or it could be completely stand alone. It all just depends on what type of woodworking you do and where you see yourself going. I started out just wanted to build a new gate with a circular saw and drill. I got hooked. Bad hooked. Now, I'm on the verge of going pro. I've got jobs backed up three months all because I built a couple of end tables for a fella that wanted a unique gift for his wife. Word of mouth spread, I made some business cards on my computer, and it's kinda gotten out of hand. Bottom line: I enjoy it! And I make some extra bucks on the side.
As far as machinery, my pride in ownership is taking some derelict of a machine that, to most folks, would be junk for the landfill. Taking the time to restore a machine, give it new life, and see it work again, well, I really can't describe it. And I did it myself, with my hands, with my efforts. It's difficult for me to buy new when there are so many out there that, with a little effort, can work like new and give another 100 years' service. As I stated earlier, ANY machine can be made into a precision machine, provided you're willing to make the effort. Mine are funtional, but not to the point of precision for precision's sake. Mine cut and mill wood, that's it. To second charlese's comment: it's not the machine that makes the project, it's the craftsman.
And a last note before I parachute off of the enormous soap box I got myself on... you've already got five machines in your Shopsmith. I would recommend that you get a jointer first. A project will be much more difficult to complete unless you can make your stock straight and square. Most wood you can buy at a home center or lumber dealer is already milled, it just needs squaring. Then I would recommend you get a planer as, eventually, you'll start milling your own stock, either re-dimensioning purchased lumber or milling rough stock.
Fellas, my rant is over. For today, at least!:)

For a newbie like me that's what's so enlightening about this forum. You see I don't know about these experiences of poor customer service because I'm so new to this. So I'd just go buy the cheapest machine to get the job done and not know about the "other side". To try and make a decision about this tool or that tool is confusing because there is so much out there now to satisfy the job. Thirty years ago we didn't have the choices we do today so there wasn't much to try and compare. Now there's junk and quality, but both will do the job. It seems to me that there are other things one might consider when purchasing a tool and it really comes to light, to me, with the SS owners pride of ownership. There's other tools out there that will do the job, maybe even a little better at doing it, but the precision and quality built into the SS endear the owners to the brand. Customer loyalty is rampant with SS owners. I'm finding that owners of other brands just buy it for the pure ability to get the job done. There are others who do the same but really enjoy and embrace the quality worksmanship and are willing to pay extra to enjoy the "machine". That may be a part of this hobby that is not being addressed and I know that I have had a lot of fun just tinkering with the SS and haven't even done much with it woodworking wise yet. So to answer the original question of this thread, I think you have to decide what's most important-just getting the task done with the cheapest machine or getting the task done with a "precision machine" that just gives you enjoyment using it. Kind of a dilema for me since I'm just starting at age 63!

Eric, great now you've got me thinking about looking for some of the older quality machines too!! Back when they were made with quality AND to get the job done. Question, would you get a jointer first or a planer? What brands would you consider? I hope I can have your experience of going pro but I am really not too good at mechanical things. I really love em but not experienced at all.

putttn wrote:Eric, great now you've got me thinking about looking for some of the older quality machines too!! Back when they were made with quality AND to get the job done. Question, would you get a jointer first or a planer? What brands would you consider? I hope I can have your experience of going pro but I am really not too good at mechanical things. I really love em but not experienced at all.

I think I'm experienced enough to be dangerous!:D Seriously, I've learned a lot of things the hard way. A lot of mistakes, a lot of misadventures, and a lot of questions. Personally, I would go with a jointer first. It's next to impossible to buy furniture grade stock that straight and square right from the mill. There's always some fine tuning that needs to be done and a jointer will fill the bill. Since you've got a Shopsmith and, this is an assumption, you've got limited space, I would recommend you go with the SS jointer. As I've said previously, I've got a stand alone shop, so I've got space to spread out. Plus, over the years I've upgraded almost all of my machinery from "hobbiest" (I use that term loosely) to industrial grade. Before I discovered my first SS 10ER, I had a little Craftsman bench saw and Delta benchtop VS 6" jointer. Both good machines, but I outgrew them. There are folks who've posted on this thread and in the forum who are perfectly happy with a 4" jointer from SS. There are those that aren't. It all depends on what you want to do. Could you joint stock for a Chippendale highboy on the SS jointer? Yes, of course. Same goes for a monstrous 24" Yates American. Where a jointer comes in real handy is when you need to face joint stock to make it truly flat. I often have to deal with stock that's twisted or bowed as I start with rough milled lumber. The jointer is the only machine that can flatten rough lumber. A planer won't do the trick as it's made for thicknessing stock. If you try to face plane stock that hasn't been jointed, the pressure/feed rollers in a planer WILL flatten the stock as it's fed in, but when done the stock will spring back to it's original shape. It's difficult to exert enough even pressure on stock on the jointer to flatten it out, especially if it's thick. With moderate hand pressure, just enough to feed the stock over the cutterhead, the knives will remove wood until that face is dead flat. Then you take the stock to the planer and feed the stock flat side down, so the knives are cutting the unmilled side. Then you take the planed stock back to the jointer. With enough pressure to keep the flat face on the fence, you run your stock over the jointer until you've got an edge which is square to the face. But, it all starts with a jointer.
You can get used SS jointers for a decent price on eBay or sometimes they pop up on Craigslist. Jointers are simple machines and relatively easy to repair, if necessary. And you just can't beat SS customer service!!
Learn how to utilize the tools and machinery you have and if you outgrow the SS jointer, you can always get a bigger one.
As far as brands if you want a bigger jointer, well, there are a lot out there on the market. As much of a proponent as I am for US made (a true misnomer, if ever there was one), I would have to go for Grizzly. There's a Grizzly showroom here in Springfield and I've examined quite a few of their machines. Fit and finish, customer service, and cost are excellent. By misnomer of US made: Delta machinery is made in Taiwan. Powermatic is following suit. So for folks that swear by Delta or Powermatic because it's American made, well, I hate to tell 'em but it's not.
I'll pose a question to you and I think maybe all of us trying to give you advice should've asked this in the very beginning: what type of woodworking are you looking to do?

Wow Eric!

You sure said a mouth full. But on most points you were 100 percent right on. Remember a person has to come up with something new to be read, these experts are all trying to get their books, articles, whatever sold. So if they can convince you that you need to go down to .0000001" you will probably read their book/articles whatever to learn how to do it.

The manufactures have to generate sales, so if they can convince you their new machine is just what you need they will have a sale. Then if they can shove you off onto someone else to service and provide the support so much the better.

The American public is funny, we not only pay for exceedingly overpriced junk we think it is sign of success to do so. Look at the car industry. If we stopped paying the prices they would come down, instead we pay more and more, they have now exceeded the price of my first and second house.

I think SS has done an excellent job in the manufacture and service of their machines. I think they have missed the boat on marketing. They had the greatest thing going back in the 80's when buying a SS was like joining a club or a fraternity.

SS tools still respresent quality and I think most of what they sell is fairly priced especially when on sale. Back that up with long term customer service and you have a winner. A Shopsmith will do the job for homeowners and in many many cases for the pro's.
You can't go wrong buying a SS tool but you can buying some of the others.
Ed

Ed;

I agree with you, completely. Shopsmith advertising has virtually disappeared. At my local Lowe's, a distributor of the SS, the display board is on a shelf, at an angle that you can't see. I discovered it purely by accident when I was looking at some Bosch router bits. There's no display model and certainly no prominent display of the advertising board. I remember when Shopsmith ads were prominent in the woodworking magazines. They kept getting smaller and smaller until they were a little bitty box in the classifieds section in the very back of the magazine and now they're gone.
I wonder if Shopsmith has ever considered publishing Hands On! again. I would certainly subscribe. It would be nice to see it on a the display rack in Walmart and other stores. Maybe sell some advertising to the companies that make aftermarket accessories for the SS, etc. I think a big part of Shopsmith's problem (and this is just me hypothesizing) is that, aside from owners, no one really knows about them anymore. Word of mouth in the machinery industry is only going to get you so far. Trying to describe a Shopsmith to someone that has no knowledge of the machine at all is very difficult because they just can't picture it. They can picture the individual machines, but can't put together the 5-in-1 concept of the SS.

Wow. Puttn, I'm really sorry . We've sent this thread all over the place!!

Eric, I'm going to print out what you explained and just sit and read it so I can visualize how the jointer/planer works on lumber that is twisted or bowed. Going to my local box store, that's all I see and I wonder how I'm ever going to work with this stuff. I still don't quite understand how the joiner "staightens" a twisted board. I would think the planer would do that but like you said it springs back to the original shape and it's just "thinner". Doesn't the jointer just do the edge of the board? How wide a board are we talking about, I'm used to seeing 2x4's that are all twisted. As to what I'm going to start with, well mostly storage cabinets, cart etc for my garage/shop so I can get the tools I do have situated. I built a workbench years ago and it's done with 4x4 and 2x4 but nailed with metal brackets. Seemed like a good idea then but now it's a bit wobbly, but heavy. So, not to hijack this thread about what I'm doing - but that's where I'm starting.

Let's see if I can explain this right. Say you have a board with a twist in it. You place the board on a flat surface and only two diagonal opposing corners touch. The board will wobble on the two touching corners. This gets a little tricky. I try to get as much of a balance as I can on the two touching corners, so the other two are off of the table. In other words, two points of contact. I use moderate hand pressure to feed the stock into the cutterhead. The cutterhead will only remove the wood that's touching the table. With enough passes, the cutterhead will remove enough wood so all four corners are touching the flat surface. Four points of contact. Basically, with the four corners flat, you now have a stable surface and can proceed to flatten the rest of the board by making more passes until the entire surface of the board is face jointed or, usually what I do, get four flat corners and run the board through the planer. This creates another flat surface. I flip the board, newly flattened surface down, and mill the other side. I repeat this process until I've got the stock the thickness I want.
Board width is limited only by the width of your cutterhead. On the Shopsmith jointer, your board width could only be 4". For wider panels, you would have to glue up multiple 4" wide pieces of stock to get the width you desire. Not too difficult to do. My personal preference is wider stock to minimize the amount of stock I have to glue up for wider panels.

OK, I'm starting to see it a little clearer. I've printed it out and will sit and study till I get it. The SS planer is only 4" right? If so wouldn't you want one that did 6" on up? Or, is this where you glue them together to come up with on big wide board. What do you do when you want a twisted board a certain thickness but have to keep planing it down to get the twist out? Thanks for the help.