Shopsmith Forums

Last summer I picked up a brand-new never used (but fully assembled) 510 with unassembled bandsaw still in the box. I purchased it from an older gentleman who bought it in March 1999 who parked it in his garage and never so much as plugged it in. Anyway, after installing the bandsaw's table, I'm looking at it and looks like the table is not square with the blade fore and aft. The table is designed to tilt to the right, and no apparent adjustments to fore and aft. Is that a problem, or is it designed that way? Also, are blade guides and other adjustments needing attention before first use, or are they fairly closely aligned from the factory? Or just basically bolted together at the factory and its left up to the owner to do any and all alignment before first use? I do have all the manuals, but need to spend a bunch of time getting to know this new machine, with manual in hand (too tired to do that tonight though).

I don't feel that fore and aft adjustment is critical but if you want to achieve that install the appropriate thickness shims between the the underside of the table and the trunnions.

From the operator's position, the band saw blade does indeed lean backwards relative to the table. The solution, as Dusty points out, is shims between the trunions and the table.

Shopsmith claims this backwards blade lean is a deliberate design feature to help clear sawdust, the theory being that the teeth enter the wood at the bottom of the work rather than all along the wood at the same time. I believe this explanation is an after-the-fact rationalization and that the blade lean is an artifact of a different design choice, namely that the upper wheel of the Shopsmith band saw is designed to tilt backward as part of the autotracking function.

Whether the blade lean is a feature designed to clear sawdust more efficiently or an artifact of the autotracking design, it is there. This blade lean will make no difference on many band saw cuts, such as resawing, or when cutting shapes/curves in thin stock. But if you are cutting tenons, it could be an issue. As you make the face cuts on the tenons, the blade reaches the shoulder cut on the bottom before hitting the the shoulder cut at the top, (which is all you can see and judge by), so you either undershoot or overshoot the shoulders slightly. Blade lean can also be an issue if you are cutting shapes in thick stock because there will be a difference in the dimensions on the top and bottom of the shape. For instance, imagine cutting a circle out of thick stock. Instead of a cylinder, you'd end up with a slight cone shape.

For these reasons, I recommend installing shimming between the trunions and the table until it is square to the blade. It won't take much. But shimming does have one drawback, which is that when raising the main table to serve as an outfeed surface for longer band saw cuts, the main table and the band saw table will be at slightly different angles. In theory, you could try to tilt the main table to match the band saw table angle. I don't bother and it seems to still work fine for outfeed support.

Dusty and algale have already covered the blade angle to the table as it comes from the factory. I would recommend going through the alignment process as outlined in the Manual before use. If you end up with any questions, we will be glad to answer them.

I have recently come to the opinion that shimming to achieve 90° blade to table at the back edge of the blade is a good thing. I previously thought that the resulting non-horizontal pitch front to rear was undesirable from the standpoint of using the SS tables for support which are(s/b) horizontal. I now think that support function need not be at the same angle as the bandsaw table.(isn't all that critical)

JPG wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:36 pm I now think that support function need not be at the same angle as the bandsaw table.(isn't all that critical)

Yes! With a band saw it is much less important to have things perfectly coplanar on the outfeed than with a table saw.