Shopsmith Forums

When dropping the shopsmith down to its legs from the highest caster location, is there any way to more gently drop it onto the legs?

I mean, that thing can get heavy and it always comes down (I feel) pretty hard onto my concrete garage floor.

Any tips and tricks to lessen the force of its fall. Maybe I am nitpicking and it bothers me more than others, but that slam down/thud always makes me grit my teeth a bit and its hard to lower and try to hold it up due to the ergonomic issues.

Cheers,
John

I have yet to find one. I have thought about cutting some anti-fatigue mats to fit under the legs to avoid that issue.

Short of some rubber on the bottom of the 'feet' I know of none.

Well you could pull up on the 'handle' as you depress the foot pedal.



i.e. get used to it.

I lower mine down gently each time using the following method: Instead of placing the ball of your foot on the arm and pushing down, place your heal on that arm and the ball of your foot will extend to the next arm. As you push down on the arm under your heal, allow the arm under the ball of your foot to "catch" the arm and then slowly allow it to rotate around. Works great.

The Mark V needs to be firmly on all four. Dropping hard sort of makes certain that it is.

Periodically, I do go through and tighten all of the leg and casters bolts.

If you continue to feel a need to reduce the impact, think about rubber mouse pads or a piece of a rubber door mat. Realize that if you attach any sort of pad to the bottom of the legs, you are reducing clearance to the floor and may adversely effect mobility.

I don't find it an issue if I go slowly through the 3 levels of the caster system. One level is all the way up. The next level is just barely up, and the final level is all the way down. Mine goes to the floor gently from the middle level. On the other hand, I have mistakenly gone from the top level directly to floor, and it dropped relatively hard.

Same caster system on my Power Station; however, the feet do have rubber pads that came with the Power Station.

Dansmith wrote:I don't find it an issue if I go slowly through the 3 levels of the caster system. One level is all the way up. The next level is just barely up, and the final level is all the way down. Mine goes to the floor gently from the middle level. On the other hand, I have mistakenly gone from the top level directly to floor, and it dropped relatively hard.

Same caster system on my Power Station; however, the feet do have rubber pads that came with the Power Station.

Interesting -- since the pedals are designed and angled to be "stepped" on from above, I never considered dropping them back down in reverse through the positions. Just tried it, and it certainly makes a difference in how hard it drops going from the lower setting to ground vs the higher setting to ground (obviously, gravity) -- however due to the pedal design it's pretty uncomfortable on the top of your foot to do it this way. Not only is there no flat part on the bottom of each pedal to butt up against the top of your foot, but the angle of the pedal makes you use more force from the bottom, again since it appears to be designed to be stepped on from above.

Nonetheless - it does seem to be one option that helps lowering with less potential for damage from force of drop.

jeremysavoy wrote:
Interesting -- since the pedals are designed and angled to be "stepped" on from above, I never considered dropping them back down in reverse through the positions. Just tried it, and it certainly makes a difference in how hard it drops going from the lower setting to ground vs the higher setting to ground (obviously, gravity) -- however due to the pedal design it's pretty uncomfortable on the top of your foot to do it this way. Not only is there no flat part on the bottom of each pedal to butt up against the top of your foot, but the angle of the pedal makes you use more force from the bottom, again since it appears to be designed to be stepped on from above.

Nonetheless - it does seem to be one option that helps lowering with less potential for damage from force of drop.

Yep, simple thing to do, just never did it that way because it didn't seem it was meant to work that way.

Well, that is the simplest solution. I will also probably get some plasti-dip and dip the feet a couple of times and give it about a 1 inch plastic covering on the feet to further decrease the "hit" each time.

Cheers,
John

jeremysavoy wrote:

Dansmith wrote:I don't find it an issue if I go slowly through the 3 levels of the caster system. One level is all the way up. The next level is just barely up, and the final level is all the way down. Mine goes to the floor gently from the middle level. On the other hand, I have mistakenly gone from the top level directly to floor, and it dropped relatively hard.

Same caster system on my Power Station; however, the feet do have rubber pads that came with the Power Station.

Interesting -- since the pedals are designed and angled to be "stepped" on from above, I never considered dropping them back down in reverse through the positions. Just tried it, and it certainly makes a difference in how hard it drops going from the lower setting to ground vs the higher setting to ground (obviously, gravity) -- however due to the pedal design it's pretty uncomfortable on the top of your foot to do it this way. Not only is there no flat part on the bottom of each pedal to butt up against the top of your foot, but the angle of the pedal makes you use more force from the bottom, again since it appears to be designed to be stepped on from above.

Nonetheless - it does seem to be one option that helps lowering with less potential for damage from force of drop.

I do see what you mean. Sometimes, I actually just lower it by hand instead of foot. In any event, either way works for me.

mountainbreeze wrote:I lower mine down gently each time using the following method: Instead of placing the ball of your foot on the arm and pushing down, place your heal on that arm and the ball of your foot will extend to the next arm. As you push down on the arm under your heal, allow the arm under the ball of your foot to "catch" the arm and then slowly allow it to rotate around. Works great.

I went out and tried your method, and yes it does work great. My under-bench-tube storage gets in the way a little bit of putting foot further onto pedal so that heel hits pedal, but after a few tries I got the hang of it, and that will be my new method. Thanks!!