Shopsmith Forums

Sometimes the OP does not return until days later.

JPG wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 10:33 am +1

We 'traditionally' think of using a square and a flat plate(saw blade sanding disk or precision plate). to zero out the table tilt.

He describes an alternative.

How many of us have a precision 1/2" ball slide shaft.

If not ignore this!

You wouldn't even need a precision shaft. With a long shaft, if you rotate it and observe the the free end you should be able to pretty easily see and align runout to be horizontal. Then align your table. (And if you can't easily see the runout then it should be straight enough not to matter )

And then set your 0º stop so that it's repeatable. I'm liking this idea.

It seems like a shaft with a 90deg T on the end of it could do both table tilt (from shaft) as well as perpendicularity to either the saw blade or the rip fence , no? Atleast for the case where the table height is equal to the shaft bottom height.

b

JPG wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 10:33 am +1

We 'traditionally' think of using a square and a flat plate(saw blade sanding disk or precision plate). to zero out the table tilt.

He describes an alternative.

How many of us have a precision 1/2" ball slide shaft.

If not ignore this!

that depends on the chucks degree of wear and tear and the rod being straight and the rod being chucked with perfection.

Welcome to the forum! Good to have you here. I'd be curious to hear more about the procedure you described here. If you could post a picture and/or some more details of the procedure it would be appreciated.
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I have attached 4 PDFs to show how I use this ball bushing shaft alignment tool. (Tried to post all pics in a single PDF but this forum max is 3 MB...)

So a picture is worth a thousand words or four pictures are worth several pages of forum comments.

Welcome back Steve! Thanks for the pictures. We try to post these inline so that a thread is easier to follow. I know this means resizing the photo to fit within the allotted size on the forum, but it helps other forum members. So, I went back to my Shopsmith manual this morning and read through all of the alignments. As I understand it, your proposed method is ONLY for setting the main table 90° stop. In the manual they install the drill chuck on the arbor and use a theoretically perfectly straight drillbit with a square to set the main table at 90° while in drillpress mode. Your method replaces this and does look like a faster method. The 0° stop alignment for the main table is set with a sawblade mounted on the arbor and a square against it referenced to the table. I don't see how your method replaces this which is what I said in my earlier comments. I pointed out that your new alignment only really applies to drillpress mode because when else do you use the 90° stop of the main table? So, I am confused why JPG told me that this procedure is NOT about the drillpress mode. I don't see how this alignment can be used for anything other than for setting the 90° stop alignment on the main table.

RFGuy wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 6:34 am Welcome back Steve! Thanks for the pictures. We try to post these inline so that a thread is easier to follow. I know this means resizing the photo to fit within the allotted size on the forum, but it helps other forum members. So, I went back to my Shopsmith manual this morning and read through all of the alignments. As I understand it, your proposed method is ONLY for setting the main table 90° stop. In the manual they install the drill chuck on the arbor and use a theoretically perfectly straight drillbit with a square to set the main table at 90° while in drillpress mode. Your method replaces this and does look like a faster method. The 0° stop alignment for the main table is set with a sawblade mounted on the arbor and a square against it referenced to the table. I don't see how your method replaces this which is what I said in my earlier comments. I pointed out that your new alignment only really applies to drillpress mode because when else do you use the 90° stop of the main table? So, I am confused why JPG told me that this procedure is NOT about the drillpress mode. I don't see how this alignment can be used for anything other than for setting the 90° stop alignment on the main table.

It seems like we interpret the pictures to be consistent with what we thought without them. I looked at two of the earlier pics and said ' yeah that's what I thought he meant. He's using it to set the table at 0 degrees.' Now I think he is using it for 0 and 90 degrees.

I set my table 90 degrees stop without raising to vertical. My logic is I'm about 50 times more likely to use it this way. I checked it once swinging to vertical and could not measure a difference with the tools I had at the time.

- David

DLB wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:42 am It seems like we interpret the pictures to be consistent with what we thought without them. I looked at two of the earlier pics and said ' yeah that's what I thought he meant. He's using it to set the table at 0 degrees.' Now I think he is using it for 0 and 90 degrees.

I set my table 90 degrees stop without raising to vertical. My logic is I'm about 50 times more likely to use it this way. I checked it once swinging to vertical and could not measure a difference with the tools I had at the time.

- David

David,

My problem with this is that if there are any errors between the runout/axial alignment of the sawblade arbor relative to the drill chuck then you won't have alignment for the 0° stop condition. Alignments in any kind of system are used to calibrate/correct out systematic offsets in a system for a particular set of operating conditions. You might get close enough doing the 90° stop alignment only and then using that for a 0° stop table setup, but what I have been saying is I wouldn't necessarily trust it. I stand by my statement that this alignment is only for the 90° stop which is only used for drillpress operations.

RFGuy, I respectfully disagree. It's easy enough to see if the chuck or rod has any runout -- simply rotate the shaft. With a rod that long even tiny runout will be greatly amplified at the free end (and if you can't easily see the runout, there's not enough to matter). Then just rotate such that the runout is horizontal instead of vertical (analogous to how you mark and rotate the sanding disk in the "official" procedure to avoid the high spot). With the runout in the horizontal plane, the rod will be coplaner with the quill in the vertical plane. Then align the table to the rod and set the 0º stop. It seems to me this process should be very accurate.