Shopsmith Forums

There have been several very active threads regarding Shopsmith table alignments. Many of these have over looked what I consider a very important element of that alignment procedure.

Make certain that your tables are "flat". If your tables (all of them) are less than perfectly flat, chances are it will have some impact on the success of your alignment.

How flat is subjective and no Shopsmith table is going to be "perfectly flat". You have to decide just how much of a deviation you are going to accept. Shopsmith does not declare a specification for this. I use a hypothetical number of .012". No highs or lows greater than this. You have to decide how you are going to measure for that.

I check for flatness, initially, by laying the Shopsmith table face down on my workbench and checking to see if it rocks. Press down on each corner of the table (one corner at a time) and see if the table moves. If it is significantly out of true, you will know. I do that for each of the floating and extension tables as well.

Not very scientific and not very quantitative but it works (if your work bench is flat). The best place to do this would be on the marble counter top in your kitchen. I don't happen to have marble counter tops. The MDF bench top in my shop will have to do.

I have four Shopsmith Main Table tops and they all pass the wobble test described here.

A straight edge and a feeler gauge might be helpful tools.

I use a Craftsman 48-inch aluminum level that I bought on sale for about $25 some time ago. Its specs stated it was for accurate measurements to .0005” which makes it a pretty good tool to check just how flat an MDF Workbench like many of us use, truly is. It also can be used against the connecting tubes laying on the verified MDF table to see if they are straight and true.

Like you, I like to lay the Table, the Extension table, and the floating tables upside down side by side on the bench to see if they not only are flat, but that connector tubes slide in and out of them freely in the extruded aluminum guides.

If they are all good to go, then inverting them and installing them to proceed with the rest of the alignment to the headstock, then check it again with the level across the table, and the sliding tables, as I move the carriage left to right end of the way tubes, checking in various places. It will vary some for sure, but the goal is to get it to acceptable tolerances to work with.

It has worked pretty well for me, but I totally agree with Dusty, one needs to verify the flatness of the tables to begin with.

This is the time to verify that the rail have all been installed properly. As was just said, the connector tubes should slide freely in the rails. If there is any binding at all, suspect rail alignment. Loosen the bolts that secure the rails to the tables, re-position to eliminate the binding and re-secure.