Shopsmith Forums

I have a zero-play bar on a small sled used on my 520, and it fits well. I later bought another pair of the bars to make a larger sled, but I haven’t used those yet. I’ll see if I can test-fit them tomorrow, and report back.

Injection-molded parts can have excellent dimensional repeatability, but that’s assuming that all the mold cavities are identical, and that the same plastic resin is used. Those parts are probably made in a multi-cavity mold, and there may have been multiple molds used over time as well. Or it could well be that Micro Jig was forced to use a different resin because of the recent supply-chain disruptions, and the substitute resin had a different shrink rate.

I cleaned these up between the fence and conical disc and they came out fine. They are a little narrower now than the advertised dimension which is better on the Mark. They are straight and easily adjusted to the correct width following the manual. Whatever resin is used, they sanded well. The stops in the package were fine, similar in cross section to a SS T-nut and both measured 0.730" on the nose. Fixing them was more satisfying than dealing with CS.

- David

I just found my extra pair of zero-play bars, and when set to minimum width they do fit in my 520 slots. Barely. I measured the minimum bar width to be 0.727" +/- 0.002 along the full length of the fully-collapsed bars.

Coincidentally, I also purchased this set on eBay, in new condition, back in 2020.

BuckeyeDennis wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 4:07 pm I just found my extra pair of zero-play bars, and when set to minimum width they do fit in my 520 slots. Barely. I measured the minimum bar width to be 0.727" +/- 0.002 along the full length of the fully-collapsed bars.

Coincidentally, I also purchased this set on eBay, in new condition, back in 2020.

I don't know if all of our calipers are equal but should be close. My bars, modified and adjusted, measure 0.723" +/- 0.002 over their length. My SS miter bar measures 0.719", I only measured in two places. I think that is correct, IIUC it is generally agreed that the SS miter bar is 23/32".

- David

Mine also did not work well, I sanded the sides down a little trying to get them to fit, but I have spent more time trying to get them to work right than just making my own in the first place would have been.