Shopsmith Forums

I am now the proud owner of a 2005 510 and bandsaw. I have some new interests that I'd like to pursue that will require a good table saw function (I never felt safe with the 500's table, converted to tracksaw but that has its limitations for certain things). I found this 510 on CL yesterday, advertised as a 520, in very good condition and appears to be lightly used. The way tubes appear to be completely rust free, a couple mystery substances on the tables that I think will come off pretty easily.

I'm not sure what I'll do with my old 500. I'll offer it and its bandsaw to my son then son-in-law before I try to sell it. I have no room to keep it or even make a shorty out of it.

For the folks who have used both a 510 and 520: in your opinion, is the Pro Fence worth the upgrade ($475 normal price)?

Thanks,
Roy

roy_okc wrote:...
For the folks who have used both a 510 and 520: in your opinion, is the Pro Fence worth the upgrade ($475 normal price)?

Thanks,
Roy

I have only a 510 and have used it frequently for the past 14 years or so. It has the 510 fence of course, and I find it truly accurate.

In my opinion, those who have purchased the 520 or 520 upgrade are going to tell you the fence is worth the cost. Especially, if it is an upgrade, their mind was made up prior to the purchase. The real worth is clearly up to you.
______________________________________________________________________________________

P.S. WELL! THAT WAS AN ERRONEOUS ASSUMPTION:o I have truly underestimated the honest frankness of my fellow forum members. The following views and recommendations are right on. Sorry for the written thought, guys!:o

Sorry! Guess after all the foolishness lately, I let myself fall into a suspicious state of mind. That's fixed now!:)

I have a 510 that has been upgraded with the ProFence and I have a 510 (Shorty) that still sports the 510 fence. I will respond to your question with a link to a previous post.

This is always a tricky one to answer but I will say that I got an upgrade for my 500 to the 520 and shortly after got a second hand 510. I was a bit more experienced with the 520 and it took me a while to open the wallet to change the 510 to a 520.

The short of it was I was having problems aligning the fence over the main table and the extension table on the 510. That could have been something the previous owner had messed up or it could have been something I was doing wrong?? I tried to come up with a reason to keep the machine as a 510 because of the upgrade cost but I couldn't do it. The 520 conversion worked fine and I now have two machines as 520's. My original machine now has the powerpro and dual tilt, also a nice improvement.

I have from the very first use like the 520 system so I'm pretty sold on that but I also miss the old 500 so I have two of them also. For a lot of the birdhouses and other smaller projects the 500 works fine and I have no alignment problems bridging the main and extension tables on those.

I will add that the 510 I got came with the fully ribbed table and I'm not a fan of that table top. I've since upgraded to the newer table top. If I had the money I would like to upgrade the other second 520 to a PowerPro and dual tilt, hey a guy can dream can't he??

Ed

Thanks for the thoughts on the upgrade. I'm naturally going to wait to see how much I even use a fence before even thinking about upgrading, unless perhaps I find an ebay or CL bargain.

I think I may try to non-destructively (no holes through the fence yet) attach a piece of 80/20 extrusion to the side of the 510 fence, which would give me the ability to easily add a spoil board if I want to do dado work or something else that needs side slots. I think I still have a good sized piece of 1545 and definitely some 1530 and 3030 that I could at least experiment with.

The PowerPro upgrade has been on my short list for quite a while for whenever I get back into using the SS on a regular basis. There is a Lowes event here next week, I may have an awful hard time coming away from that without purchasing a DIY kit.

roy_okc wrote:Thanks for the thoughts on the upgrade. I'm naturally going to wait to see how much I even use a fence before even thinking about upgrading, unless perhaps I find an ebay or CL bargain.

I think I may try to non-destructively (no holes through the fence yet) attach a piece of 80/20 extrusion to the side of the 510 fence, which would give me the ability to easily add a spoil board if I want to do dado work or something else that needs side slots. I think I still have a good sized piece of 1545 and definitely some 1530 and 3030 that I could at least experiment with.

The PowerPro upgrade has been on my short list for quite a while for whenever I get back into using the SS on a regular basis. There is a Lowes event here next week, I may have an awful hard time coming away from that without purchasing a DIY kit.

Even though the T-slot is in the top of the 510 fence (520 has them on the side as well) you can use the Shopsmith T-nuts and the top slot to attach a fence extension/spoil board. In the second, third and fourth photo of this post, https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?p=151418&postcount=24 you can see my top-mounted fence extension/spoiler board on a 520 fence using the Shopsmith T-nuts.

Al

algale wrote:Even though the T-slot is in the top of the 510 fence (520 has them on the side as well) you can use the Shopsmith T-nuts and the top slot to attach a fence extension/spoil board. In the second, third and fourth photo of this post, https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?p=151418&postcount=24 you can see my top-mounted fence extension/spoiler board on a 520 fence using the Shopsmith T-nuts.

Al

Al,

Thanks for the link, I'll keep that in mind. There are actually 3 pre-drilled 1/4+" holes through the 510 fence so I can attach whatever I want to attach through there, be it wood or extrusion. Unfortunately, the holes don't line up well for 15-series 80/20 use; 10-series would work, but the widest I see is 3" which I don't think is enough. I'll also look into some of the wide T-Track such as Woodpecker's Super Track (3.85" wide).

Roy

In my opinion the upgrade to the 520 is a lot more than a Pro fence.

The way the connection tubes interact with tables is where I see the biggest improvement.

With the 510 the tightener to the connector tubes came from the side and the table could be aligned exactly centered, too high or too low. It changed depending on how you held the table and connector tube.

This misalignment cost me two ruined projects. It frustrated the ever loving crap out of me!!!!!!! I hated it!!!!!!! And to me it made an excellent machine the 500 a piece of junk.

I hated it so much that I stopped using my Shopsmith altogether. Would have sold it to the first person that offered me more than $1. It sat unused for nearly 15 years. I actually rented time on other machines to accomplish what I wanted and was actively seeking to replace it with stationary machines. At about this time my SIL bought a Unisaw so I just shifted to it.

Then I saw the 520 the connector tube tightener comes up from the bottom. The table is always pushed down the tube always up. It never changes. Once properly setup the table always are exactly lined up. Perfectly.

That made me fall in love all over again with my Shopsmith.

As for the Pro fence I actually liked the 510 better but I will admit adjusting the pro fence is far easier.

My opinion the 510 upgrade was ill conceived, ill executed and should never have been built. I believe it did more damage to Shopsmith than anything else Shopsmith ever did.

Had I never owned a 500 or 520 I would be first to declare Shopsmith made only junk, that is how bad I view the 510.

Don't get rid of your track saw, it is far superior to anything when cutting down sheet stock or squaring an edge. Only competition I know for it is a high end panel saw or big buck CNC machine. It would cost a least $30,000+ to get the quality of cut and accuracy of a Festool or Eurekazone track saw.

Ed in Tampa wrote:In my opinion the upgrade to the 520 is a lot more than a Pro fence.

The way the connection tubes interact with tables is where I see the biggest improvement.

With the 510 the tightener to the connector tubes came from the side and the table could be aligned exactly centered, too high or too low. It changed depending on how you held the table and connector tube.

This misalignment cost me two ruined projects. It frustrated the ever loving crap out of me!!!!!!! I hated it!!!!!!! And to me it made an excellent machine the 500 a piece of junk.

I hated it so much that I stopped using my Shopsmith altogether. Would have sold it to the first person that offered me more than $1. It sat unused for nearly 15 years. I actually rented time on other machines to accomplish what I wanted and was actively seeking to replace it with stationary machines. At about this time my SIL bought a Unisaw so I just shifted to it.

Then I saw the 520 the connector tube tightener comes up from the bottom. The table is always pushed down the tube always up. It never changes. Once properly setup the table always are exactly lined up. Perfectly.

That made me fall in love all over again with my Shopsmith.

As for the Pro fence I actually liked the 510 better but I will admit adjusting the pro fence is far easier.

My opinion the 510 upgrade was ill conceived, ill executed and should never have been built. I believe it did more damage to Shopsmith than anything else Shopsmith ever did.

Had I never owned a 500 or 520 I would be first to declare Shopsmith made only junk, that is how bad I view the 510.

Don't get rid of your track saw, it is far superior to anything when cutting down sheet stock or squaring an edge. Only competition I know for it is a high end panel saw or big buck CNC machine. It would cost a least $30,000+ to get the quality of cut and accuracy of a Festool or Eurekazone track saw.

I am still running a 510, Ed, and I need to better understand how the 510 rails interacted with the 510 extension tubes to cause you these problems.

I already understand that if you have a mixed vintage of rails and extension tubes (505, 510) that you may have trouble achieving and/or maintaining table alignment. There has been at least one thread on that subject matter.

If I understand correctly though, your issue is slightly different. You seem to have had problems that you believe were caused by the extension tubes not aligning consistently within the rails. Is that an accurate assessment?

Rhetorical question: How great were the errors? You said that projects were ruined as a result of this. What were you building?

Aaah, I just reread the thread. Was your discontent brought about by a 500 (Goldie or Greenie) or by a 505/510?

Roy, I stand behind my original comments regarding the 510 vs the 520 rail and fence systems. I believe that equally precise work can be done on both and that the effort to achieve that precision is comparable between the two. To chose one over the other is, IMO, a financial decision and not one of technical comparability.

I too have been cussing/discussing with myself on upgrading my 510 to a 520. I picked up a 510 setup, for what was to me a very reasonable price, about 8 years ago, and have used it for quite a few different projects. For every project I've done, all rip cuts were made on the 510.

For probably 85% of those rip cuts, the 510 system performed very well, and I can't complain. (You can copy and paste the URL in my 'signature' line into the address line on your browser if you care to see some of my projects)

The other 15% of those rip cuts are when the fence needs to straddle the main table and floating table gap, and I will gripe/grumble/and cuss the 510 fence. The simple solution is for me to use a piece of scrap as an auxiliary fence so that ALL of the contact/lock points of the fence are all on the floating table. I don't have first-hand knowledge to determine if the 520 fence will help with this or not...... The more of a Biesemeyer-type fence on the 520 should be easier to set/adjust.....

Right now, the 510 works for me just fine. In another 18 months or so, when I can change from semi-retired to retired, and we change our residence location...... I'll probably re-visit the 520 upgrade, or preferably pick up a 520 off the used market and make a shorty out of my 510.

How's that for a non-committal response?