Don't Fix It If It Ain't Broke

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 9:54 am

I found myself messing with table alignments this past week and now I have to do what I have done several times before. I must play the game of moving tables around and tweaking them until they are all compatible with one another.

It will get done probably sometime today but it is work/play that did not need to consume my time.

Bottom Line: If you have your tables set up, leave them alone. Especially the Extension Tables. The Extension Tables, once properly aligned,
are very finicky about where they reside. For years now I have had a Right Hand Extension Table and a Left Hand Extension Table. I believe it needs to be that way. Maybe, just maybe, the changes that come with the dual tilt system will have cured that.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 11:47 am

dusty wrote:I found myself messing with table alignments this past week and now I have to do what I have done several times before. I must play the game of moving tables around and tweaking them until they are all compatible with one another.

It will get done probably sometime today but it is work/play that did not need to consume my time.

Bottom Line: If you have your tables set up, leave them alone. Especially the Extension Tables. The Extension Tables, once properly aligned,
are very finicky about where they reside. For years now I have had a Right Hand Extension Table and a Left Hand Extension Table. I believe it needs to be that way. Maybe, just maybe, the changes that come with the dual tilt system will have cured that.

Do not bet the farm on that!;)

I think it easier to align a table on a support tube mount than an end casting that includes a hinge.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 11:55 am

[quote="JPG40504"]Do not bet the farm on that!]Trading the tie bar for the mechanical interface offered by the multi tilt is what makes me think that.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:19 pm

Although 'better' somewhat than the old tiebar/clamp design, it is an open faced hinge with a single screw wedging the hinge pin to the casting slots 'bottom'.

I think the original clamp clamps better than the new 'thumbscrew'.(big thumbs!)

The newer design has gravity working in its favor.

I am suspicious that much of the dissatisfaction with the older design was due to inadequate alignment/clamping of the lock. The lock had to be 'just right'(too loose and alignment varied, too tight and the lock did not clamp properly). The 'thumbscrew' eliminates that variance unless floor variation is gross.

Ed in Tampa · Post by **Ed in Tampa** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:31 pm

dusty wrote:I found myself messing with table alignments this past week and now I have to do what I have done several times before. I must play the game of moving tables around and tweaking them until they are all compatible with one another.

It will get done probably sometime today but it is work/play that did not need to consume my time.

Bottom Line: If you have your tables set up, leave them alone. Especially the Extension Tables. The Extension Tables, once properly aligned,
are very finicky about where they reside. For years now I have had a Right Hand Extension Table and a Left Hand Extension Table. I believe it needs to be that way. Maybe, just maybe, the changes that come with the dual tilt system will have cured that.

No truer words could be spoken!!!!!!

When I got my 500 I was young agile and had better than 20/20 eyesight. I set up my 500 to what I considered perfection. Then came the 510 upgrade and age. I was less agile and had started wearing glasses. Plus I think my patience was starting to go. In any case I got it close to perfection or at least as close as some components allowed, and no I not going there again.

Then I got the 520 again age, little worst eyesight less patience and closed enough.

Then came the sawdust sessions, and this forum. Now people were using digital gauges and new methods to adjust their tables.

Since then I have removed my main table at least twice from the trunions, drilled new holes in the trunions, damaged my hand while drilling those things and have a table alignment that I think is not as good as it was before I started all of this.

If I had never read the forum, where people were drilling trunions, using exotic methods of alignment and such I believe my table would be in better alignment than it is now.

I'm to the point of when I read someone say they have their table aligned to within .001" of parallel to the blade and fence with perfect vertical and horizontal alignment I simply smile and say good for you brother.

As for me and my Shopsmith I refuse to mess with it anymore. My agility, my eyesight and my patience simply will not tolerate another session of main table alignment.
When I cut a piece of wood on my machine if it isn’t perfect it is probably because of something I did rather than the machine.

If it ain’t broken don’t fix it.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:38 pm

Ed in Tampa wrote:No truer words could be spoken!!!!!!

When I got my 500 I was young agile and had better than 20/20 eyesight. I set up my 500 to what I considered perfection. Then came the 510 upgrade and age. I was less agile and had started wearing glasses. Plus I think my patience was starting to go. In any case I got it close to perfection or at least as close as some components allowed, and no I not going there again.

Then I got the 520 again age, little worst eyesight less patience and closed enough.

Then came the sawdust sessions, and this forum. Now people were using digital gauges and new methods to adjust their tables.

Since then I have removed my main table at least twice from the trunions, drilled new holes in the trunions, damaged my hand while drilling those things and have a table alignment that I think is not as good as it was before I started all of this.

If I had never read the forum, where people were drilling trunions, using exotic methods of alignment and such I believe my table would be in better alignment than it is now.

I'm to the point of when I read someone say they have their table aligned to within .001" of parallel to the blade and fence with perfect vertical and horizontal alignment I simply smile and say good for you brother.

As for me and my Shopsmith I refuse to mess with it anymore. My agility, my eyesight and my patience simply will not tolerate another session of main table alignment.
When I cut a piece of wood on my machine if it isn’t perfect it is probably because of something I did rather than the machine.

If it ain’t broken don’t fix it.

i.e. Do Not look for hairline 'fractures' that have not caused anything to 'relocate'!

All that from Mr. It took three tries to get the 520 table I got, and I ain't bragging on it!:D

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 1:36 pm

Oh Yes, you are so right, Ed BUT it is so satisfying when you do finally succeed.

As for this blunder of mine, I may have recovered. Ignoring the fact that I messed with the rail mounting on multiple tables, I also introduced all of my extension tubes into the mix (without keeping track of which was which.

I have now properly mounted and fine tuned all the rails (front and rear) and I have hand picked extension tubes. I cannot hand pick extension tubes for every setup so I may need to buy some new tubes.

Remember, however, that I am very frugal. I'll have to spend some time trying to straighten tubes before I do that.

robinson46176 · Post by **robinson46176** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 3:36 pm

As I have done refurbs I have always used different colors than the original and I paint the underside of the main table and any extension tables. I also paint the tailstock, fence and mitergauge all with the new colors. Not a huge amount to paint on the fence. That way I can keep track of all of those items to use them on their "home" machine 98% of the time.
Now that doesn't mean that I won't borrow them back and forth now and then, especially extension tables or miter-gauges but I don't ever re-align them to another machine especially the main tables. I have not repainted the old Mark VII but its giblets all look quite different any way as do the 10-ER items.
The tables on the Push-me / Pull-me drill press I simply don't pay attention to except to check for square to the quill now and then.

Now I don't want to start sounding too accurate here... I sometimes equate my level of accuracy to the stories my father told me of the auto dare-devil outfit he traveled with in the early 1930's. They played exhibition auto polo using model T Fords (available cheap everywhere then). They had to work on them constantly and he always said that in replacing a piston (never in sets) that they would drop in a piston and if you couldn't get your fingers in around it that was "close enough".

.

dforeman · Post by **dforeman** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 4:43 pm

Yup! An old friend once told me that a long time ago. I was also told once that there was no such thing as a perfectly square, clean, strait, knotless, etc piece of wood.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 6:29 pm

dforeman wrote:Yup! An old friend once told me that a long time ago. I was also told once that there was no such thing as a perfectly square, clean, strait, knotless, etc piece of wood.

If there were, it would not still be so tomorrow!:D

Well knotless . . . . . . maybe!