Shopsmith Forums

Power Pro problems

Five or so years ago I upgraded my headstock to the Power Pro. Shortly after installing it I stopped woodworking and my Shop Smith stood idle until about a year ago when I retired and rekindled my interest in woodworking. When I returned to my Shop Smith I found the headstock was frozen and would not move along the way tubes. In trying to fix the problem I discovered that the new Power Pro is so filled with “stuff” of various types that, unlike the old headstock, I did not see how I could open it up to reach the wedge locks to repair them. I did contact the factory and they were very helpful. They put me in touch with an engineer over the phone who listened to my problem and helped me unfreeze the wedge locks. I forget exactly what his instructions were, but part of his advice was to push harder on the headstock. [It is heavier than the old headstock and it takes more mussel than I was used to to move it.] I did that, and the headstock moved and all seemed reasonably well. Things were not entirely well as the headstock did not move nearly as smoothly as the old headstock, and when the locks were tightened down, or loosened, the machine made noisy sounds like it was groaning and complaining. But, it worked and I put up with the inconvenience. A problem has emerged, however, as I have installed a lift assist and am, for the first time since I resumed use of my Shop Smith, raising it vertically and seeking to use it in drill press mode. The headstock stood quite solidly at the top of the way tubes when I installed the lift assist but after I lowered the machine to horizontal and moved the headstock back and forth a bit it now slides slowly down the tubes whenever I attempt to raise it to vertical. I have tried tightening the wedge clamp lever but it resists and noisily objects to turning very much and I know that over tightening will damage the way tubes. During the months in which I used the Shop Smith horizontally I used it only as a table saw and therefore did not exert much sideways force to push it horizontally along the way tubes. Today I used it as a horizontal boring machine in order to drill the holes which I was originally going to do in drill press mode. This work-around worked, but as I was drilling some soft pine I hit a hard spot and pressing the quill forward put some sideways pressure on the headstock and it slid along the way tubes a bit. Thus I think the firmness of the headstock’s grip on the way tubes is questionable even when the machine is horizontal. I will call Shop Smith back again as they seem to be a good company which was helpful before and hopefully will be helpful again. But before I call I thought it would be a good idea to see if anyone out there had some experience with this sort of problem or had any observations or suggestions. Does anyone have any ideas?

Dan

Suggestions:

Put the unit in drill press position. Place a plywood board across the way tubes. The headstock should be about 6 inches above the plywood. The plywood will be a resting place for the removed motor pan (cover).

Remove the belt cover and the motor cover. To remove the motor cover you'll have to first remove the power cord strain relief. Then removing the screws holding that pan. gently slide the cover down the power cord as far as you can and rest it on the plywood.

Now check the wedge locks to see if they are rotated correctly.

Now put the covers back on and thoroughly wax the way tubes using Johnson's origional paste wax.

Since the wedge locks are considerably softer than the way tubes, over tightening will deform the wedges rather than damaging the waytubes. Over tightening may cause the threads in the wedges to become stripped.

Also the wedges need to both be clamping the way tubes. If the wing nut does not have clearance the wedges will not do that. They are 'self centering', but must be within their range. Is it possible the wedges got 'mis positioned' with the pp upgrade?

Charlese and JPG,
Thank you for your quick replies. You both replied to a question I had last week on removing the worktable (in preparation for installing the lift assist)and those proved most helpful and were very much appreciated. I will try your suggestions on my latest difficulty and hope they will prove as helpful too. One point, however: Charlese wrote about removing the strain relief on the power cord and I recall running into that issue the first time I tried to deal with the wedge lock problem. When I tried to drop the motor pan the strain relief did indeed prevent the pan from dropping very far. I am not mechanically trained or experienced (indeed I was a law professor and worked with words rather than things) and I was very intimidated by the idea of just yanking at an electric cord: Lord knows what kind of mechanical carnage I could cause by mucking around in an area I knew little about. Any suggestions on how to release it without damaging anything
Dan

As a 'modification' to Chuck's suggestion, with the ss in vertical, install the work table into the carriage from 'below' the carriage. This provides a 'closer' surface.

Please add your location to your profile. There may be someone close by who can help.

IMPORTANT!!

JPG is absolutely correct in his last post. You should remove the saw table after you have it in drill press position and insert it into the carriage from the other side so it is just below the headstock.

Sorry I forgot that part.