Shopsmith Forums

As many of you already know I am a bit of a fan of most of the design of the old Mark VII's. Other than the plastic speed control cam and plastic headstock rack they are a good machine with some good features. If the old original company had fixed those two problems and made good on all of the existing units out there it likely would be the dominate model yet. Of course they were probably already working with their backs to the wall anyway... Such is life and business.
I have one nice Mark VII (does have broken rack gear strip) and a couple of organ donors. One donor has a good plastic cam.
Not so long ago I tipped the Mark VII up to vertical (to the left) and put a little puddle of oil on the speed control button bearing and let it sit over night. The next day I turned the unit by hand and then ran it a few minutes. The bearing was already very quiet but I wanted to give it as much chance as possible. It is my intention to do that several times a year.
I like having it in my shop "just because" and want to get use from it but I don't want to just make a daily workhorse out of it. I have plenty of work-horses anyway. I like to think of it a little like having a classic car, get it out and drive it on weekends.
Right now it is sitting there in tablesaw mode with one of the "L" shaped extension tables on each end. For the time being I am going to use it as a dedicated dado machine. I am going to be making a fair number of shelves, mostly "working" shelves. Several sets in the woodshop and also in the farm shop. I still need a couple of more full height shelves in the library and I am going to finish out a fair sized attic room, about a 14'x18', as an extension of the library (it currently only has a floor and a finished stairway). I have about 2 pickup truck loads of books up there now stacked over a load bearing wall below them. We are also finishing out a small former cottage about 10'x18' as a little guest house. It has a small garage, 12'x18' attached to it and we want to convert it to a tack room which will need a fair amount of shelving.
I figure that if I set the Mark VII up with a dado head set to cut a tight 3/4" dado it will be about ideal. I think I will then just mill the shelves to fit the dado. I believe I would rather cut them that way than on the radial arm saw.
I have a spot in one corner near the door into the woodshop from the rest of the basement that is about 64" wide where I can keep it parked and ready. Another advantage of the old Mark VII is that it only needs 5' instead of 6' to park it. The door is 4' wide so I will only have to move it a few feet out into the floor and a few feet to the side to make any dado cuts.

I decided this morning where I want to put one of my refurbished Mark V's to serve mostly as a dedicated lathe. The spot isn't empty yet but the lathe Shopsmith is sitting in the clear and I pulled the taped paper sign off of the former "spot" and moved it to the new "spot". That should almost count, right? The new spot is right by the door to the outside which is my only natural light source and I like a mix of light for detail stuff.

Slowly getting there...

Hey Farmer, out of curiosity, what kind of RAS do you have?

I got into vintage RAS's when I was working on a scrapbook-paper organizer for my wife. The thought of making a gazillion dado cuts on a Shopsmith first had me building a crosscut sled. But then I realized that dado cuts would ruin the sled for saw cuts. To me, a good RAS still seems like the best tool for dados.

The dado cuts don't have to ruin your sled. If you build one with inserts like my old faithful Appalachia sled you simply replace the inserts when you are done making the dados.

There are some pictures and details here:

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/viewtopic.php?t=2587

I don't think the guy who made these sells them any more but the design concept could be used with your own build.

Ed

BuckeyeDennis wrote:Hey Farmer, out of curiosity, what kind of RAS do you have?

I got into vintage RAS's when I was working on a scrapbook-paper organizer for my wife. The thought of making a gazillion dado cuts on a Shopsmith first had me building a crosscut sled. But then I realized that dado cuts would ruin the sled for saw cuts. To me, a good RAS still seems like the best tool for dados.

I did find the sled still listed but there was nothing to indicate if they still so a shopsmith version.

http://www.appalachiatools.com/sunshop/ ... detail&p=7

Ed

Francis, I'm surprised you don't have a Cast Iron
Shopsmith. (Model 10.)

They are STILL the best Shopsmiths to use as a lathe.

PERIOD!

(They are also the best drill-press.)

steve

skou wrote:Francis, I'm surprised you don't have a Cast Iron
Shopsmith. (Model 10.)

They are STILL the best Shopsmiths to use as a lathe.

PERIOD!

(They are also the best drill-press.)

steve

OOPS, Sorry. You DO have a 10-ER.

Try it as a lathe. The extra weight (all that cast iron)
REALLY improves the lathe capabilities. If you can find
a speedchanger, you'll be impressed!

Newer (53) versus older, (47) isn't always better.

Besides, like the guys on "America's Test Kitchen" say, Cast Iron
ROCKS! (I think they're talking about cookware, not tools.)

(Yes, I DO have 400 pounds of Cast Iron cookware, too.) I'm
funny like that.

steve

reible wrote:The dado cuts don't have to ruin your sled. If you build one with inserts like my old faithful Appalachia sled you simply replace the inserts when you are done making the dados.

There are some pictures and details here:

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/viewtopic.php?t=2587

I don't think the guy who made these sells them any more but the design concept could be used with your own build.

Ed

BuckeyeDennis wrote:Hey Farmer, out of curiosity, what kind of RAS do you have?

I got into vintage RAS's when I was working on a scrapbook-paper organizer for my wife. The thought of making a gazillion dado cuts on a Shopsmith first had me building a crosscut sled. But then I realized that dado cuts would ruin the sled for saw cuts. To me, a good RAS still seems like the best tool for dados.

If I ever finish the sled that I started, it will definitely have sacrificial inserts. But I didn't learn about that option until after I had gone the RAS route.

I still prefer the RAS concept for cross-cutting long boards -- with the saw guided by a roller track and the workpiece stationary. Same logic as using a track saw for breaking down sheet goods. But unlike good track saws, good vintage cast-iron RAS's are as cheap as Model 10's .. i.e less money than that miter sled, even without the miter attachment. The only downside I can see is that dust collection is more of a challenge.

BuckeyeDennis wrote:Hey Farmer, out of curiosity, what kind of RAS do you have?

I got into vintage RAS's when I was working on a scrapbook-paper organizer for my wife. The thought of making a gazillion dado cuts on a Shopsmith first had me building a crosscut sled. But then I realized that dado cuts would ruin the sled for saw cuts. To me, a good RAS still seems like the best tool for dados.

Did you see the video Frank Howarth posted of his recently acquired, vintage radial arm saw. 16" blade, 5 hp 3 ph motor.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyS0Ih7ga8k[/youtube]

BuckeyeDennis wrote:Hey Farmer, out of curiosity, what kind of RAS do you have?

I got into vintage RAS's when I was working on a scrapbook-paper organizer for my wife. The thought of making a gazillion dado cuts on a Shopsmith first had me building a crosscut sled. But then I realized that dado cuts would ruin the sled for saw cuts. To me, a good RAS still seems like the best tool for dados.

My old RAS is a 10" Craftsman, nothing special. It is mounted on a nice cabinet base with maybe 3 drawers and a space at the bottom. It has casters at the front and straight rollers at the back. There are little screw jacks at the front that raise it off of the casters to lock it in place. It also has a fairly large sawdust catcher that sits around the post and hooks to a 2.5" shop vac hose. I was going to look at it today to see what its model number was but I got busy with the horses and forgot. It's still sitting in the farm shop and I have been waiting for the weather to dry out more to move it.

My first RAS was a Rockwell made Penncrest (J. C. Pennys) labeled double armed RAS. I liked it so much that I later stupidly sold it to my father's best friend when he was retiring. He used it for years and last I knew his son (a good friend of mine) was still using it. I had decided that I wanted a table saw and felt too poor at the time to feel like I could have both.
Maybe 30 years ago I had an old 12" commercial RAS that came from a contractors shop close-out auction. It was also a double arm saw. Its field coil failed and it needed a couple of small parts. I finally gave up on it after chasing parts all over the country and not finding what I wanted except at ridiculous cost.
Some time when I feel a little less stretched for loose change I would love to find a steal on one of the older DeWalts but not a 3 phase one.
As it stands I am maybe 1200% over this years spending...

skou wrote:

skou wrote:Francis, I'm surprised you don't have a Cast Iron
Shopsmith. (Model 10.)

They are STILL the best Shopsmiths to use as a lathe.

PERIOD!

(They are also the best drill-press.)

steve

OOPS, Sorry. You DO have a 10-ER.

Try it as a lathe. The extra weight (all that cast iron)
REALLY improves the lathe capabilities. If you can find
a speedchanger, you'll be impressed!

Newer (53) versus older, (47) isn't always better.

Besides, like the guys on "America's Test Kitchen" say, Cast Iron
ROCKS! (I think they're talking about cookware, not tools.)

(Yes, I DO have 400 pounds of Cast Iron cookware, too.) I'm
funny like that.

steve

I wouldn't feel like a proper Shopsmith owner if I didn't have a 10. I don't use it a lot but I enjoy its company. I do expect to be using it more fairly soon.


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