Shopsmith Forums

I've been thinking about converting my Mark V. 500 to a shorty. I have a dedicated table saw. I have a 10ER as a lathe and disk sander (and it's available for other functions). I have another 10ER as a dedicated drill press (it can not be lowered to horizontal). I use the Mark V to power my bandsaw, use a dado blade, sometimes as a router, etc.

Why should I NOT recover a little space in my shop by making it a shorty? What might I lose?

Check out this link:
http://www.shopsmith.net/forums/showthr ... ube+length

There are many threads on the subject. If worse came to worse, you could always buy some standard size Mark V tubes.

Good luck.

IIWM(actually I already did so) I would cut the bench tubes to 26 3/4" / 26". Cutting both bench tubes gives you two shorter 'pair'. The way tubes could be cut to 25 5/8 / 26 3/8 instead.

A 'pair' of tubes is easier($) to replace later.

A mini makes a very nice 'power station'. Better than a stock power station.

Well, I need to maintain use of the carriage and main table since I'll still be using my dado set on it. And I don't want to lose disk sander functionality or the ability to use the extension table (wide version) with the main table either. So I think a "mini" would be too short. I think about 14" to 16" is the most I'd be comfortable cutting off.

I can't believe I didn't think about it yesterday, but I do have a full set of tubes I could use if I wanted to go back to full length. I have a set of legs and tubes that I have plans to turn into a miter saw/planer stand.

I took 16" off of mine, which I use mostly as a drill press with the jointer on the left end. In the horizontal mode, there are times when I which I had just a little more room to maneuver but there has never been a setup that I was not able to achieve.