Shopsmith Forums

First the discovery.

I have the "new" band saw with the larger aluminum table and the standard mounting tubes. While the mounting tubes are eccentric, they don't offset the band saw sufficiently to allow the Mark V to go vertical, i.e. to drill press mode, unless you first remove the band saw. The larger table on the band saw interferes with the way tube tie bar.

Or so I thought.

Turns out if you unlock the band saw table trunnion and tilt the band saw table all the way down, the tie bar will just barely clear the band saw table. This is easier than removing the band saw and cheaper than buying the special band saw off-center mounting tubes (which have a reputation for being a bit springy anyway).

Now for the reminder.

I thought I had checked my headstock lock but apparently I hadn't, so when I started raising the Mark V, the headstock slipped down the way tubes. Luckily the headstock was already pretty close to the main table, but even thought the travel was probably only 6 to 8 inches, it made a terrifyingly loud bang when the quill smacked the table. The quill left a small finger nail shaped dent and burr on the main table of my 520. I sanded off the burr and nothing else seems worse for the wear. Lesson: Always double check the headstock lock before you go vertical.

algale wrote:First the discovery.

I have the "new" band saw with the larger aluminum table and the standard mounting tubes. While the mounting tubes are eccentric, they don't offset the band saw sufficiently to allow the Mark V to go vertical, i.e. to drill press mode, unless you first remove the band saw. The larger table on the band saw interferes with the way tube tie bar.

Or so I thought.

Turns out if you unlock the band saw table trunnion and tilt the band saw table all the way down, the tie bar will just barely clear the band saw table. This is easier than removing the band saw and cheaper than buying the special band saw off-center mounting tubes (which have a reputation for being a bit springy anyway).

Now for the reminder.

I thought I had checked my headstock lock but apparently I hadn't, so when I started raising the Mark V, the headstock slipped down the way tubes. Luckily the headstock was already pretty close to the main table, but even thought the travel was probably only 6 to 8 inches, it made a terrifyingly loud bang when the quill smacked the table. The quill left a small finger nail shaped dent and burr on the main table of my 520. I sanded off the burr and nothing else seems worse for the wear. Lesson: Always double check the headstock lock before you go vertical.

I think just about everyone has done this 'once'. Us wise ones limited it to only 'once'.

JPG40504 wrote:Us wise ones limited it to only 'once'.

You've still got time to do it again.

algale wrote:You've still got time to do it again.

I'll 'pass'!

That mental 'slip' is what got the spacer rod removed after the greenies went gold. That rod was quite effective in knocking a hole in the table carriage where that rod was screwed into.

You may want to check the quill shaft runout to insure that the quill shaft was not bent. I would mount a known flat sanding disk (no sandpaper) or a known true saw blade to check runout if no dial indicator is available. I would recommend marking something or a way to check the quill shaft runout ever year or two or whenever a mistake happens. I reject quill shafts with .003" or greater runout at the arbor end of the quill shaft. I am finding too many bent quill shafts (12%) when the owner says he never did any lathe work where I had believed most bent quill shaft accidents would occur.

billmayo wrote:You may want to check the quill shaft runout to insure that the quill shaft was not bent. I would mount a known flat sanding disk (no sandpaper) or a known true saw blade to check runout if no dial indicator is available. I would recommend marking something or a way to check the quill shaft runout ever year or two or whenever a mistake happens. I reject quill shafts with .003" or greater runout at the arbor end of the quill shaft. I am finding too many bent quill shafts (12%) when the owner says he never did any lathe work where I had believed most bent quill shaft accidents would occur.

Good advice. I do have a dial indicator and will try to jig it up to check run out and report back.

After Bill Mayo suggested I check the run out, I couldn't sleep thinking about my potentially bent quill. So I went down to the shop and set up the dial indicator. I am happy to report that my dial indicator is showing run out of less than .002" -- both at the fully retracted and fully extended quill positions. Not bad!

Thanks to the "Push-me / Pull-me drill press" I no longer lift any of mine to vertical in regular use. When I was doing that I forced myself to always grasp the way tube with one hand on each side of the headstock. I don't really recall ever forgetting to tighten the lock. Rather than "smarts" I attribute it to a lifetime of daily working with machinery that is prone to such casual slips being very potentially fatal...
It is a little like jumping out of a plane. Very few folks step out of the the plane door then say "OH, CRAP... Forgot the chute..." It is not like walking out the front door and forgetting your keys.
I was just thinking today about an old friend of about 55 years (he is about 73) that I have chatted with several times just this month. I only learned through genealogy research a few years ago that we are distant cousins. My 3rd great grandfather married the sister of his 3rd great grandfather and his 3rd great grandfather married the sister of my 3rd great grandfather.
This friend had always worried me because we had worked together a lot of times with big machinery and some of his work habits were troubling to me. He has not done anything fatal so far but he does now have a right arm that they were able to basically save but it is pretty much a paper weight... He also has a missing digit from his youth.
The young man that farms his uncle's farm across the road from me lost his father a few years back when he failed to set the brake on his tractor and it rolled back into a mud hole and squished him between the tractor and the cattle feeder he was about to move. The uncle had an assortment of missing digits from over the years.
A neighbor that grew up across the back fence had years ago made fun of me for maintaining the large gate-like guards in place on my self propelled combine later was nearly killed when he became wound up badly on a spinning shaft on his PTO driven manure spreader. His son said later that "dad is bolting all sorts of guards on everything now". It was a tough lesson but at least he apparently learned from it...
Another close neighbor lost a very young son to a grain wagon accident...
It gets a little bit scary when I get to thinking about how many of the guys in my community that I can list that were badly injured, lost arms or were killed in farm accidents... My own father ran 2 fingers through a set of big bevel gears on a corn picker, just got too casual...
Of course I could be dead from some kind of accident tomorrow but it won't be because I have not spent my whole life trying like hell to avoid it.



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