Shopsmith Forums

Took an early lunch break today to catch the Lowes Shopsmith demo in Dallas. I needed to see a Powerpro Mark 7 in person and in action. The Powerpro ran really smooth and quiet. I didn't have any problem hearing the demonstrator when it was running at 10,000 rpm while he was demonstrating the under table shaper function. The new control pad seems to make the Shopsmith that much easier and versatile to use.

I concluded that I would someday do the "Do it yourself upgrade." I believe that I would also get the Mark 7 double tilt upgrade. Didn't seem to make sense to get the double tilt upgrade without the Powerpro headstock though. Anyone have a different thought? I just have to start saving up for it, that might take awhile.

If you have the chance, I would recommend going by and checking out the demos in your areas. If for nothing else, to see it in person.

I attended the demo at the Fort Worth Lowe's Wednesday. It is quite an impressive machine in person and I too would have to save for quite a while to purchase an upgrade.

cdmclain wrote:I concluded that I would someday do the "Do it yourself upgrade." I believe that I would also get the Mark 7 double tilt upgrade. Didn't seem to make sense to get the double tilt upgrade without the Powerpro headstock though. Anyone have a different thought? I just have to start saving up for it, that might take awhile.

If you have the chance, I would recommend going by and checking out the demos in your areas. If for nothing else, to see it in person.

If you are willing to sell all the extra components you will find the DIY upgrade is not very expensive. I went from a 520, so I was able to sell the speed reducer (and increaser if you have it) as well as motor, dual-bearing quill, speed control, old lift-assist cyclinger and lots of other parts and parting out a Shopsmith is incredibly profitable if you get luck. If you are going from an older 500 there are not as many things to sell but the different in performance is worth it to me. There are other threads here detailing how inexpensive it can be.

Also if you have access to 220 volts the machine is even better.

Now I just need another local demo so I can get all the stuff I forgot the first time, still trying to decide if it is worth driving to Olymipa, WA but with $4+ fuel it may not be a good idea.

Good thought about selling the old parts. As of right now, I was thinking of keeping the parts as spares for the second Shopsmith. Don't we all have two?

As for forgetting, I really wanted to check out the Shopsmith sand paper display and assortment while I was at Lowes. I had upgrade on the brain and just walked right out with looking for it.

I did notice that Shopsmith has made it known on its sale emails that a price increase is coming soon. I don't know how that will affect the PowerPro pricing but it is another factor that I am considering. So I have "PowerPro on the brain" right now.

Have a good one.

FWIW, I purchased the double tilt upgrade (planning to do that on my Spring Break) and will upgrade the headstock later.

BPR