Shopsmith Forums

algale wrote:These totals are not too far off from what I got when I priced all new Grizzly stuff. I still think, however, that you are giving up a great deal of functionality, so I don't see buying all new stand alones as being a much better deal than buying a new Shopsmith.

Your second option, however, where you pick up a used Shopsmith for $300, raises another question that I haven't been able to answer. Why would anyone buy a new Shopsmith today when you can get a used one for a fraction of the price? Now, I haven't seen too many of the 510/520s in the price range of $300, but I do see them between $900-1500 with some regularity in my part of the country which is less than half the price new. And the fact is, these machines are so well built that they are often virtually as good as new or can be brought to new condition for not a lot of money. So why buy new? That's Shopsmith's big problem, as I see it. These machines can last forever with minor maintenance and there's an easy source for used machines and spare parts between ebay and Craigslist. This means that today's Shopsmith is in effect competing with Shopsmith/Magna products from the 1950s to the present, or in the case of the 510/520s from the 80s and 90s to the present. That's an unwinable battle. That's probably why Shopsmith developed the PowerPro --it is something that makes the machine new again and for which there won't be any competition from the distant past -- at least for a while.

Al

You are correct to look at this from the company's perspective. In my opinion they have several more things they can do to make a big demand for their new machines in the coming years and I think it would be foolish to think that they are not working quietly, planning to create added demand (uniqueness). It would also be foolish for them to outline way ahead what those plans are. For example, if they were to announce that next year they are coming out with an all new model with an "improved" PowerPro mounted on a new base that included all manner of fantastic storage, was 100 times more solid and cleaned house and washed windows, BUT no current units could be upgraded... how many potential customers of the current PowerPro would go into holding mode?
BTW, a whole new base with storage that would work as an upgrade would be a nice option to see come out. (hint, hint)...
I am struck daily at how much more impressive my old Mark VII looks just sitting in my shop than the Mark V's. Not that it is an unbelievably major improvement mechanically, just that it looks damned impressive.
Back to company perspective... The first thing some folks need to get past (you listening Ed? ) is the notion that Shopsmith "needs" to sell a zillion of these things a year. A new Shopsmith is a niche market... It was a niche market from the start and will by nature always be a niche market. Shopsmith needs to make sales and profit. It is not Shopsmiths job to try to put one in every shop in the country. It is not their job to be a bargain... Their job is to maximize their own level of profit based on what profit they "need" to stay in business and show slow steady improvement. That is how a niche market works. You can either be Wal-Mart or you can be Fred's Fine Fishhook Emporium. You can't be both...
When I had my shoe shop (which I will soon reopen on a part time basis) I had to make a choice as to where I wanted to be in the pricing scale for services. I could have planned to rebuild 500 pair of shoes a week for $1 profit each or I could have planned to rebuild one pair of shoes a week for $500 profit each. Reality tends to fall somewhere in the middle...
Part of the choice is determined by type of input cost. If the input cost is purchasing (and you have the money) it is usually best to lean toward volume. In my case with the shoe shop most of my cost was my labor/time/skill so I always wanted to lean toward higher per unit returns since my labor/time/skill was limited.
Shopsmith is limited by how many people would be interested in their unit at any price so they must operate as a high per unit profit producer. The knock-off's chopped price a lot and claimed improvements but they are "ALL" gone now. That should tell you a lot.
Would I buy a new one at $4,000 ? Probably not but I am an old geezer farmer getting down toward the short rows in the field (though buying a new one is still possible). If I were 40 years old I would buy one in a minute and look at it as a long term investment in on-going pleasure.
DANG! that hurt. I just fell off of my soapbox.


.

dusty wrote:They could easily become the primary source for repair parts if their prices were competitive.

How do you know that they aren't the primary source of repair parts? As for being competitively priced, I see parts on ebay frequently go at or above the Shopsmith price new, especially when you add in the shipping. Of course it would be great if the new prices were lower.

algale wrote:How do you know that they aren't the primary source of repair parts? As for being competitively priced, I see parts on ebay frequently go at or above the Shopsmith price new, especially when you add in the shipping. Of course it would be great if the new prices were lower.

Could this be because people who already have a Shopsmith mistakenly think they are no longer being made and may not be a part of the forum? Just something to think about.

BPR

algale wrote:How do you know that they aren't the primary source of repair parts? As for being competitively priced, I see parts on ebay frequently go at or above the Shopsmith price new, especially when you add in the shipping. Of course it would be great if the new prices were lower.

There are some parts that can not be purchased new from anyone other than Shopsmith but for parts like saw blades, band saw blades, drill bits, bolts, nuts, set screws, power couplers, etc many people turn to ebay, craigs list before they even consider Shopsmith. I believe that price becomes the controlling factor.

Yes, some people with Shopsmith equipment do not even know about Shopsmith.com but that is another discussion all together.

Ed in Tampa wrote:Pennyview
You are absolutely correct. Blade heeling problems were resolved back in the late 80's

Apparently the above report of the demise of bad heeling problems are greatly exaggerated. At least heeling problems are back in fashion for some saws.

I stumbled upon this review this morning.
http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/1464 The reviewer says of his saw (Craftsman 21833): "Unfortunately the saw I bought has a critical defect. Even after changing the trunion bolts, the horizontal blade alignment changes radically from the lowest to highest blade positions, as much as .080&#8221]http://www.gbook.org/index.php?option=c ... &Itemid=56[/url], where the reviewer wrote: "I realized that no matter how much I adjusted the blade parallelism to be absolutely perfect, within 0.001", I was still burning wood when cutting. I couldn't figure it out! I raised the blade, check the parallel and everything was fine. Then I started looking online and found other people were having alignment problems with the saw. The problem was in my opinion absurd, and a problem which should never have left the factory in China, yet there it was in my basement. Like others had done, I lowered the blade from the max height and checked the parallel... it was way off. The blade parallelism was changing as the blade was raised and lowered!!"

Because I'd heard that the Craftsman and the RIDGID are basically the same saw coming out of the same factory in China, I did a little more research and found this review of the RIDGID http://www.routerforums.com/tools-woodw ... dvice.html where the reviewer says: "Got a new Ridgid R4512. All set up. Issue with alignment when raising vs lowering the blade. The saw blade moves to the right when raising, Moves back to the left when lowering. The saw is perfectly aligned to the miter slot when the blade has been lowered, even just a tiny bit. I mean no more than .001 difference front to back and to the best I'm able to measure, it's less than .001. When you raise the blade it moves to the right. How much? With the blade all the way up (not against the stops. Raise to the stop, lower it 4 turns on the crank, raise it back up 2 turns), the back has moved to the right by 12 thousandths and the front has moved 5 thousandths."

Then I decided to broaden my research. I found this site http://woodgears.ca/delta_saw/alignment.html talking about a Delta hybrid: "Once the lateral (or run in / run out, as it's often called) is adjusted, it's time to check the 45 degree alignment. With the blade set at around 45 degrees, again measure the difference front and back. If the distance differs a bit, adjustment is accomplished by adding or removing washers from under one of the trunnion mounts. On my saw, there was a .008" difference front to back."

And this one http://forums.finewoodworking.com/node/93835 on a General International: "Hello all, I have a General International 50-185 contractors Saw. Here's the deal 1. Blade is aligned perfectly parallel with the miter groove when almost fully raised. 2. As I lower the blade, the blade shifts to the right. Specifically, the front part of the blade shifts about .002 and the rear of the blade shifts about .008. Bottom line, fully raised it is aligned but goes out of alignment as I lower the blade. 3. Blade is .012 out of parallel when tilted 45 degrees fully raised."

And this one http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/2090 on a Grizzly hybrid: "Now for the interesting part. After I had everything done where I thought I was ready to go, I again checked the blade being parallel to the miter gauge slot. Surprise! It was off by about 40 thousands of an inch. This time the blade was about half way down. I again adjusted the trunnions to make it parallel. The dial indicator is attached to a TS Aligner, Jr., which is an awesome instrument. The alignment of the blade would now change as I raised and lowered it. It actually would swing in opposite directions as I raised and lowered the blade off of the half way up alignment. When the blade was all the way up the back end of the blade toes in, and when the blade was up enough to cut a 1” board the back of the blade toes out. I even tried putting a washer as a shim under one of the rear trunnion bolts, but it really didn’t effect anything."

Then I decided to stop looking. I was on page 3 of some 32000 (edit: I erroneously typed 3200) results for a google search for the following terms: defective trunnion alignment table saw.

Al

Hmmm. Craftsman, Rigid, General, Delta and Grizzly Hybrid - are they all built in the same plant in China or are we too quick to jump to convenient conclusions.

Maybe they are all built to the same manufacturers specification; which would make the problem a design problem and not the manufacturer's contribution at all.

OR, this could be an inherent problem brought about by who really owns what.

I can't keep up as all of these 'independent manufacturers' keep changing hands. Maybe we should be blaming Stanley.

GREAT RESEARCH EFFORT Thanks for posting your findings. I hope this helps prevent someone from getting hurt.

I certainly can understand that it might be considered to be one and if I owned one of the suspect saws I would be trying to get my money back or an exchange for a saw that does not exhibit the problem.

Flesh Detection won't resolve this one!:rolleyes:

Can't see me selling mine even though I don't use it much. I just know that a couple of months after selling it, some project will turn up that could really make use of the SS.

dusty wrote:I certainly can understand that it might be considered to be one and if I owned one of the suspect saws I would be trying to get my money back or an exchange for a saw that does not exhibit the problem.

Flesh Detection won't resolve this one!:rolleyes:

Depending on how much the blade is heeling when the blade is set to a bevel and in which direction, I would think the immediate danger would be to increase the pinch/kickback potential on a bevel rip. I would think that if users are seeing any kind of burning on the wood, however, the increased heat would lead to more pitch build up and faster dulling of the blade, which could lead to problems making all kinds of cuts. That's my $0.02 on the safety side of it.

While I am not suggesting all tilt-arbor saws have this problem, it appears to still be an all-too common problem on a variety of non-cabinet saws, which begins to make sense of why a recent bevel cutting sled for tilt-arbor saws got an enthusiastic reception a few weeks back over on Lumberjocks.

algale wrote:Apparently the above report of the demise of bad heeling problems are greatly exaggerated. At least heeling problems are back in fashion for some saws.

I stumbled upon this review this morning.
http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/1464 The reviewer says of his saw (Craftsman 21833): "Unfortunately the saw I bought has a critical defect. Even after changing the trunion bolts, the horizontal blade alignment changes radically from the lowest to highest blade positions, as much as .080&#8221]http://www.gbook.org/index.php?option=c ... &Itemid=56[/url], where the reviewer wrote: "I realized that no matter how much I adjusted the blade parallelism to be absolutely perfect, within 0.001", I was still burning wood when cutting. I couldn't figure it out! I raised the blade, check the parallel and everything was fine. Then I started looking online and found other people were having alignment problems with the saw. The problem was in my opinion absurd, and a problem which should never have left the factory in China, yet there it was in my basement. Like others had done, I lowered the blade from the max height and checked the parallel... it was way off. The blade parallelism was changing as the blade was raised and lowered!!"

Because I'd heard that the Craftsman and the RIDGID are basically the same saw coming out of the same factory in China, I did a little more research and found this review of the RIDGID http://www.routerforums.com/tools-woodw ... dvice.html where the reviewer says: "Got a new Ridgid R4512. All set up. Issue with alignment when raising vs lowering the blade. The saw blade moves to the right when raising, Moves back to the left when lowering. The saw is perfectly aligned to the miter slot when the blade has been lowered, even just a tiny bit. I mean no more than .001 difference front to back and to the best I'm able to measure, it's less than .001. When you raise the blade it moves to the right. How much? With the blade all the way up (not against the stops. Raise to the stop, lower it 4 turns on the crank, raise it back up 2 turns), the back has moved to the right by 12 thousandths and the front has moved 5 thousandths."

Then I decided to broaden my research. I found this site http://woodgears.ca/delta_saw/alignment.html talking about a Delta hybrid: "Once the lateral (or run in / run out, as it's often called) is adjusted, it's time to check the 45 degree alignment. With the blade set at around 45 degrees, again measure the difference front and back. If the distance differs a bit, adjustment is accomplished by adding or removing washers from under one of the trunnion mounts. On my saw, there was a .008" difference front to back."

And this one http://forums.finewoodworking.com/node/93835 on a General International: "Hello all, I have a General International 50-185 contractors Saw. Here's the deal 1. Blade is aligned perfectly parallel with the miter groove when almost fully raised. 2. As I lower the blade, the blade shifts to the right. Specifically, the front part of the blade shifts about .002 and the rear of the blade shifts about .008. Bottom line, fully raised it is aligned but goes out of alignment as I lower the blade. 3. Blade is .012 out of parallel when tilted 45 degrees fully raised."

And this one http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/2090 on a Grizzly hybrid: "Now for the interesting part. After I had everything done where I thought I was ready to go, I again checked the blade being parallel to the miter gauge slot. Surprise! It was off by about 40 thousands of an inch. This time the blade was about half way down. I again adjusted the trunnions to make it parallel. The dial indicator is attached to a TS Aligner, Jr., which is an awesome instrument. The alignment of the blade would now change as I raised and lowered it. It actually would swing in opposite directions as I raised and lowered the blade off of the half way up alignment. When the blade was all the way up the back end of the blade toes in, and when the blade was up enough to cut a 1” board the back of the blade toes out. I even tried putting a washer as a shim under one of the rear trunnion bolts, but it really didn’t effect anything."

Then I decided to stop looking. I was on page 3 of some 32000 (edit: I erroneously typed 3200) results for a google search for the following terms: defective trunnion alignment table saw.

Al

When I said resolved I should have said could be adjusted out of most saws.

Now the problem of the lateral blade movement while raising or lowering the blade is a totally different problem.

Blade heeling is usually caused by one of two things; blade not perfectly parallel to the table or the arbor support that runs between the two trunions is flexing or bending.

In the past many manufactures constucted this arbor support to be two steel tubes or bars that ran between castings that hung onto the trunnions. These tubes/bars were pinned into casting that then rode in the trunnion. The arbor support was also pinned to the tubes/bars. In most cases they were carefully built and everything was fine but in some cases they weren't and the arbor had a slight twist.

Delta had a fix for this and I think other manufactures do also.

In some cases saws were manufactured with the fitting was so sloppy there was no fix but I think most of these have been discountinued. Those early saws were the ones where the experts said do not crank bevel into the saw and build jigs to get around the problem. But I haven't heard of a saw lately last 20 years where this was a problem that could not be easily solved. That is why I said the heelign problem is resolved. But should have added some adjustment may still be needed.

Ridgid and few other saws have gotten around the problem by using a one piece casting. Again the casting could be wrong but I would hope quality control would prevent this.

As for the blade having lateral movement on raising or lowering I would have to understand how the effected machine accomplished the raising and lowering.

That said you seem to take fault with their fixes "add washers". We add washer (shims) to our machines. See main table setup procedures.

We have also had problems where trunion bolts weren't drilled correctly, where main tables were warped, where fences were bent, and other things.

I personally had to have three main tables sent to me before I got one flat enough that I would accept, I also had a fence replaces, and I have had to drill 2 trunions out. I have many shims under my tables and I have devised ways to get around other problems I have had.

Am I saying my Shopsmith is a piece of crap? NO!

But just because these other machines must be setup and various things corrected in that aspect there is no difference between then and Shopsmith.

And remember these machines cost between $500-$1000