Shopsmith Forums

I inherited a Mark V from my father in law’s neighbor. It had been sitting in her garage for 20 something years. Serial # on it is 305144. It’s not in bad shape but has a fair amount of dust and gunk on it. Small rust spots on the legs and headstock. The slides are in really good condition. Eventually I’ll do a complete refurb on it but I want to get it cleaned up and start using it. What’s the best way to clean off the painted surfaces and bare surfaces?

Soap and water. Mineral spirits( or any solvent) for greasy stuff.

Johnson's original paste wax is thy friend after cleanup.

Not easy to damage anything other than bearings which are replaceable.(just do NOT move the speed control dial with out the shafts rotating(manually or otherwise).

So basically don’t turn the speed control unless it’s running?

Simple answer YES.

But then how does one change the setting when it is NOT running?

One manually rotates the shafts(made easier by attaching a 12" sanding disk).

And yes it IS important!

Jong16,

Welcome to the Shopsmith Forum. Based on the serial number (305144) your Shopsmith Mark 5 is a Greenie made in September of 1955. One of the areas here on the forum site you may want to check out is under the Maintenance and Repair section for Shopsmith Large Format Drawings, Illustrations and More by Everett Davis. This will be one of the first three topics. In it you will find a wealth of information on the Shopsmith tools. Some are directly linked there and others are on “My Google Drive” with documents too large to be directly linked. Everett has become the Shopsmith historian by saving and restoring manuals and other documents. If you do not have the manual for your Mark 5 you can find restored PDF copies of the first three Mark 5 manuals with more to come. They are in the folder titled 1954+ Mark 5 and the correct manual for your Mark 5 would be the second edition. Because your Mark 5 has the "A" Headstock some of the maintenance is a little more difficult to preform. The 1955 manual has some very basic maintenance procedures listed. There are better maintenance instructions in the Mark V Model 500 Summary Manual at the following link here on the Shopsmith website.

https://www.shopsmith.com/getting_start ... Manual.pdf

Keep in mind that this summary manual is for the later version of the Mark V 500 with the original table system so there are differences between it and your Mark 5. The main difference is the headstock version. Yours has the "A" Headstock whereas the summary manual has the "B" Headstock with better access for maintenance.

Note the information on page 6 in the 1955 manual under SPEEDDIAL as this is what JPG was referring to.