Shopsmith Forums

I was going to post this on the thread with the link to the poll at Tom's Workbench, but then thought it might be worth it's own thread. Reading the results on the poll, got me to thinking.

I feel an emotional attachment to, and a satisfaction from my Shopsmith. Logically I realize that there are "better" saws, or "better" lathes. But none that I've used have elicited the same feelings that I get from working in the shop on or with my Shopsmith. In a completely non logical anthropomorphic way I feel like my Shopsmith is a partner in the process. We may have to work together to overcome some facet of its design, or my lack of skill to achieve a result I want, but we can. Maybe that's part of the charm, the machine may not be perfect but it's adaptable.

reddog5362 wrote:I was going to post this on the thread with the link to the poll at Tom's Workbench, but then thought it might be worth it's own thread. Reading the results on the poll, got me to thinking.

I feel an emotional attachment to, and a satisfaction from my Shopsmith. Logically I realize that there are "better" saws, or "better" lathes. But none that I've used have elicited the same feelings that I get from working in the shop on or with my Shopsmith. In a completely non logical anthropomorphic way I feel like my Shopsmith is a partner in the process. We may have to work together to overcome some facet of its design, or my lack of skill to achieve a result I want, but we can. Maybe that's part of the charm, the machine may not be perfect but it's adaptable.

I think you nailed it on the head. With my Shopmith, my imagination is much more likely to be the limiting factor than the machine itself. In a production environment, I'm sure that I'd want machines optimized for special purposes. But for experimenting as a hobbiest, the SS is just the ticket for me.

Here's an oddball case in point. I'm in the process of restoring a 1940-vintage Stanley Bedrock #5 plane. The knob and tote are in good shape, but the wood is nothing special, unlike the earlier rosewood ones. So I plan to make some new ones on the SS out of some pretty wood -- maybe rosewood burl. It will be fun. The horizontal boring function will make child's play of drilling the hole for the handle bolt. As for the knob, I didn't think I even wanted a lathe until after I already had the SS!

But that's not the odd part .. this is. The body of the plane needs a little work. The sides and sole have some minor pitting, and the sole is not quite square with the sides. Hand lapping would be tedious work, and getting the sole square with the sides by hand would be a challenge. My first thought was to use the surface grinder at work, but its stroke is a bit too short. Then it struck me that the conical disk sander on the SS could probably do a fine job. First dress the sole square with one of the sides, with the body clamped to a nice straight jointed and planed board, guided against the rip fence. Next take a few thousandths off the sides to clean up the rust damage, using the rip fence as a guide. A little bit of hand lapping, if needed for cosmetics or a perfectly flat sole, would be the final step.

How many woodworking machines could do all that?

BuckeyeDennis wrote:How many woodworking machines could do all that?

By definition, five.

To me, there's an emotional bond with my Shopsmith as my Dad taught me woodworking on his and now he's gone...so there's a visceral connection whenever I use it to my Dad and my youth. I own lots of tools, at least some of which were also his but the Shopsmith is the one that maintains this connection. Every time I flip on the power switch, I think of how often he did the same on the same machine and I only hope my creative juices can reach a fraction of his. He was a wonderful craftsman, architect, and artist and built many wonderful projects on this SS, so I can't imagine going any other route myself, nor can I imagine teaching woodworking to my kids on any other machine(s).

You're not the only one. I am 3rd Gen owner of the very same SS and I get a lot of satisfaction from that. I have been using this very same SS for most of my life.