Shopsmith Forums

yesterday I was able to do the maintenance on the power station that I bought some time ago ,it has been setting for some time unused and it was well over due ,blew the spider webs out of the inside with the leaf blower , looked like a few dead ones were rather old , fixed a rattle on the belt cover and tightened a few loose rattling screws ,,,it was some what noisy when it ran , it ran fine but sounded like the bearings were dry , the belts look a little worn but not frayed or cracked so I think they will be fine ,, oiled the bearings and all movable parts , I put the sanding disc on and let it run for a few minutes and the noise dissipated , I did notice the sanding disc was spinning opposite from the direction on the MKV ? with some polishing inside the mounts I was able to get a table to drop in , seems like the holes were a bit crusty , before the cleaning and oiling the disc would stop with in a few seconds of turning the unit off, now it spins for a little while after the switch is thrown . the girls need a disc sander for trim and molding for the rental and I think this is going to be a great little machine , it is small and yet beefy enough . I give it a thumbs up .

The normal direction of rotation on a Power Station matches the Aux spindle on a Mark V. IIRC, the Power Station has a reversible motor. You could look into that if you want to reverse the sanding disc. I have a bandsaw mounted on my Power Station, so the direction of rotation is correct for that.

Yes, the proper motor for a Power Station is reversible but why would you want to do that? As stated, reversing the direction of the motor makes it wrong for all of the normal SPT operations.

As for noisy, the Power Station (as well as the Crafters Station) is noisy. The noise is generated by the speed control mechanism. The only time it is not noisy is when it is turned off.

I forgot to mention that there's a spindle on the opposite side of the Power Station that does rotate in the same direction as the Mark V main spindle. I didn't notice mine for a while, because it's normally hidden beneath a little twist-lock cap. You can stick a sanding drum on it for free-hand sanding. Or a buffing wheel, wire brush, etc. But without a table on that side, it's utility is limited.

Dusty is correct about stock Power Stations being inherently noisy. But I modified mine, by adding stiffeners that eliminate the worst structural resonances. Its noise level is now about the same as a conventional Mark V headstock. Details are in this thread.