Shopsmith Forums

I bought a craigslist special about a year ago. Lot of cleaning, some paintg, wax, oil, and new belts. Bearings seem fine. Noticed that when I put table saw blade arbor on the spindle there is a tiny amount of play. Direction of motion is parallel to spindle shaft, not perpendicular. Seems to cut fine, but I am not experienced with precision cutting. Is this normal? Duckman

That end play can be reduced by loosening the knurled collar, pulling out on the shaft, pushing in on the collar and with your third hand, re tighten the collar set screw(making sure to rock the allen wrench so as to guarantee the screw contacts the flat on the shaft at its lowest point). There is a separate tapered flat on the shaft for the collar.

For sawing, you definitely want to minimize end play.





P.S. If you are blessed with good hand dexterity you can pull out on the shaft and push in the collar with one hand. Then you will not need the third hand.

THIRD HAND ... Ha! Love it.

Got it JPG. That makes sense. When I was servicing it (partial rebuild of the head) I recall accidentally loosening that set screw on the knurled collar and quickly tightening it again. I probably did not get it back in place correctly when I retightened it. I will find a 3rd hand and let you know if your recommendation corrects the issue. I am getting ready to an old jointer and bandsaw back into service so I will be coming with questions. I am by the book as much as possible, but anticipate getting stumped and needing advice. Duckman

Never a third hand around when you need it. Try putting an arbor or other 5/8" adapter on the quill shaft and leave room enough for a flat tip screwdriver between it and the collar. Twist the screwdriver and the collar will be pressed in at the same time as pulling the quill outward.

I ended up being able to do it myself without a third hand. I put a small bowl turning plate on the driveshaft/spindle and used wooden wedges (rather than a screwdriver) between the knurled collar and the plate to take out the wiggle. Seemed to work. I do not have a good frame of reference for determining whether it is perfect. It is better than it was. Thanks JPG & Redhand. v/r Duckman

Duckman wrote:I ended up being able to do it myself without a third hand. I put a small bowl turning plate on the driveshaft/spindle and used wooden wedges (rather than a screwdriver) between the knurled collar and the plate to take out the wiggle. Seemed to work. I do not have a good frame of reference for determining whether it is perfect. It is better than it was. Thanks JPG & Redhand. v/r Duckman

Good Thinking!!!!

redleg wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2017 4:28 am Never a third hand around when you need it. Try putting an arbor or other 5/8" adapter on the quill shaft and leave room enough for a flat tip screwdriver between it and the collar. Twist the screwdriver and the collar will be pressed in at the same time as pulling the quill outward.

Duckman wrote: Wed Aug 09, 2017 9:10 pm I ended up being able to do it myself without a third hand. I put a small bowl turning plate on the driveshaft/spindle and used wooden wedges (rather than a screwdriver) between the knurled collar and the plate to take out the wiggle. Seemed to work. I do not have a good frame of reference for determining whether it is perfect. It is better than it was. Thanks JPG & Redhand. v/r Duckman

Resurrecting this old 2017 thread to say thanks for these two posts. I am having a lot of difficultly removing the very small but noticeable end play in one of my spindles. I have tried tightening the knurled collar many times, but just can't seem to remove all the play. Since it is a very small amount of movement, I think the set screw may be self-aligning with the dimple left in the flat on the spindle. I can't think of a way to remedy this other than filing the flat which I'd rather not do. I am considering making a shim washer to take up the play between the collar and the bearings inside race. I am going to try the wedge idea first.
Thanks again, Mike -

miken wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 1:51 pm Resurrecting this old 2017 thread to say thanks for these two posts. I am having a lot of difficultly removing the very small but noticeable end play in one of my spindles. I have tried tightening the knurled collar many times, but just can't seem to remove all the play. Since it is a very small amount of movement, I think the set screw may be self-aligning with the dimple left in the flat on the spindle. I can't think of a way to remedy this other than filing the flat which I'd rather not do. I am considering making a shim washer to take up the play between the collar and the bearings inside race. I am going to try the wedge idea first.
Thanks again, Mike -

There have been at least five different designs for the quill/spindle/bearings over the decades of Mark 5/V/7 production, so some variation is likely. It is my experience that there are other causes and solutions for 'excessive' (how much is that?) end play besides the knurled collar. Bearing(s) are a likely contributor IMO.

Currently in my shop I have two different versions of the two-bearing quill. 'A' is a relatively new one from SS that came with my PowerPro upgrade kit, it exhibits a good bit of end play. 'B' is an earlier two-piece spindle version of the two-bearing quill that I recently rebuilt. It exhibits almost no end play. The collar makes little, if any, difference to either one even if I remove it.

In measuring end play the quill needs to be locked down tight. It works as kind of a two-stage thing where the lock first locks the pinion, which may still allow the quill itself to move a bit. Further tightening then clamps the quill itself to the headstock. When measuring or evaluating end play we need to be certain that the quill itself is not moving in the headstock so we are only looking at spindle movement inside the quill.

- David

DLB wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:09 am
In measuring end play the quill needs to be locked down tight. It works as kind of a two-stage thing where the lock first locks the pinion, which may still allow the quill itself to move a bit. Further tightening then clamps the quill itself to the headstock. When measuring or evaluating end play we need to be certain that the quill itself is not moving in the headstock so we are only looking at spindle movement inside the quill.

- David

I'm not understanding what kind of play you are looking at here, or what you mean about the bolded part above. Probably something obvious to everyone else but maybe you wouldn't mind explaining a little further. Are we talking about movement of the quill in and out of the headstock as would be a serious problem as a table saw and not so much for some other functions?