Shopsmith Forums

I now have three shopsmiths. A brand new Mark 7 which just purrs, A 1983 Mark 5 which runs pretty quietly, and I just picked up a 1997 Mark 510 which is very loud. It sounds like a jet engine. Any idea why it would be so loud? Its a bit scary.

Unplug machine

Pull the belt cover off, disconnect the drive belt from the motor, spin the spindle / drive assembly by hand to get a feel for the roughness of bearings.

Manually rotate the motor for same thing.

open the inspection cover on the back, pop off the retainer from the speed control quadrant, and spin that bearing by the button and retainer clip.

It may be one or more areas.

Everett

Jet engine? Screaching belt??? Screaching bearing?

Now clanking/clattereng has a different source.

With the conventional headstocks some are noisier than others. To get a feel for the noise, watch the videos by Nick Engler and note the noise level when he runs the speed up. Some noise may be attributed to the care (or lack of) given by the previous owner. When I rebuilt my headstock and used sealed rather than shielded bearings I thought it was running at half speed when I started it up. It was very quiet compared to others that I have done. It is also a 1983 production model. Maybe 1983 was a banner year.
Bill V