Shopsmith Forums

If anyone cares to participate here is the link.

I added my two cents worth.

rlkeeney wrote:If anyone cares to participate here is the link.

I added my two cents worth.

1918 HUH?....

p.s. at least the thread originator is objective! I only saw one HUMAN.











(Head Up My Ass Nincompoop).

I don't belong to that Forum and not certain I want to join. I will check it out further.

I have both stand-alone equipment and two SS 500s (a 1979 and a 1982 model). The 79 was owned by my brother, the 82 I purchased new. I have the jointer, planer, and biscuit joiner. In the stand-alone arena I have Delta radial drill press, lathe, bandsaw, miter saw, as well as a couple of radial arm saws, shaper, and table saw. Most of my stand-alones date to the 70's and 80's. One of my radial arm saws is a 1962 Sear's Best and I am here to tell you there is no plastic in that saw. I got it from an uncle who only turned it on once after buying it new in 1962. The other radial arm is a Ryobi I bought in 1980. It has an arbor that spins at 17000 rpm so I use it as an overarm router.

Ok, all that said I have to say I love my SSmiths and find them very valuable when I am working a project. I primarily joint, plane, sand, dado, shape, biscuit join, dowel, etc. with them. They are great when you have a lot of something to cut. Even with a stand-alone shaper, often you need to do two cuts or procedures. I do the first on it, then move to the SS for the second.

With everything I own, I have never felt the urge to upgrade them because my standard is: "What do you need in order to do what you can't do now?" I feel like I have the best of two worlds, really three with my hand tool collection. I feel sorry for people who latch on to a label and discount a great product simply because of a prejudice.

WmZiggy wrote:I feel like I have the best of two worlds, really three with my hand tool collection.

Excellent point...I suspect that most of the people who discount Shopsmith based on the (misperceived) onerous burden of frequent mode changes have never actually worked with the machine. Even so, there may be a grain of truth in the complaint, as, for example, when the need to joint an edge arises and the bandsaw is already mounted on the machine and the jointer is on the shelf on the other side of the shop. That is the time when the tried and true jointer plane can be brought into play. So, you could say that Shopsmith has encouraged me to expand my woodworking abilities to include traditional hand methods... that is another plus for Shopsmith.