Shopsmith Forums

I want to put a headstock, bandsaw, beltsander on a shorty. No carriage, table etc. Just enough room to move the headstock and coupler from one machine to other. Anybody got the length for the bench and way tubes for that setup?

I have seen a few power stations on ebay and craigslist lately ?

I have my bandsaw on a power station. Plan to sale that. Moving to a smaller space. Giving up several things. I have a Sawsmith 2000 ultra with a large outfeed table, outbound router table etc. Going to sell that setup and go back to my 520 as my primary tablesaw. Jointer will sit on that setup full time. 2nd SS has been a full time drill press for many years. Bandsaw and sander paired with a 3rd headstock I have and I should be good to go. I love the Sawsmith 2000 but I love my panel saw more. I bought the 520 new the year that fence system came out (22 years ago?) 220Volt workhorse. It will stay in tablesaw mode full-time. The jointer will stay on the tablesaw stand full-time as well. Panel saw,drum sander,router table and pocket hole machine are going with me too. Something had to go.

I don't know the bench and way tube lengths needed for this setup but it should be easy to determine. With the Bandsaw mounted on the left side of the headstock and the belt sander on the right side facing the front connect one side of the headstock to the SPT with a coupler and measure the distance to the other SPT's drive shaft. This minus a couple inches for moving the headstock for coupling/uncoupling would be the amount to cut off the Bench and Way Tubes. If desired as a function for this shorty check if an extension table will still fit on the right side with the 12" Sanding Disk in place. The wider 500 extension table would be more desirable than the original 4" wide one for this or use the 520 extension table. You can still use the Mark V 520 for Disk sanding which would have more support features than this shorty.

RRSTV wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:57 pm I want to put a headstock, bandsaw, beltsander on a shorty. No carriage, table etc. Just enough room to move the headstock and coupler from one machine to other. Anybody got the length for the bench and way tubes for that setup?

Are you planning for bandsaw on one end and belt sander on the other? Or switching back and forth between SPTs? Minimum length is different between the two. My 'mini' is half length way tubes and is not long enough for two SPTs without modifying something.

- David

When I built my version I took out 16" or 1/3 of the length. This provides a functional shopsmith abet shorter version. Almost anything the full size one can do can be done on it. Yes the lathe is short, drill press is shorter etc.

Yes is is not as compact as could be but does save some space. I believe the added functionality those few inches provide can be well worth it, well at least for me. I also think it would have a greater resale potential if it ever came to that and if one of my other machines has a headstock fail the shorty can be used as is rather then having to swapped out a headstock.

If those couple of inches are really critical of course you have to do what you have to do.

Ed

I took 18" off of mine and it still has the table carriage. I would guess for what you want to do 24" might be about right. An inch one way or the other would not make a big difference unless it is too short.

Right now I'm putting together a shorty that will act as a Power Station. I cut a bench tube in half at 26-3/8", the way tube into two 25-5/8" pieces and a little leftover. Once I have it put together with a headstock and carriage I'll figure out how short to make it. I just cut these pieces to test out my cutoff saw after some repairs. I have a sanding shorty that I cut 1 foot off to start and now that the cutoff saw is working I can cut down at least 10 more inches. I'd suggest always starting a shorty based on the length of a bench tube cut in half and then reducing from there if necessary.

It's easy to fix too long. Too short is a lot tougher.

Cut bench tubes (52 3/4) into a 26 and a 26 3/4. Then adjust from there if necessary.

Shopsmith makes what they call the Shop Deputy kit which is two 26" long Way Tubes plus hardware which can be seen at the link below and is shown in the pictures below.

https://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/cat ... deputy.htm

As I understand it from your original post, you want to have both the Bandsaw and the Belt Sander mounted at the same time. 26" Way Tubes look to be too short for that purpose. You need to allow for the Belt Sander to overhang the Way Tubes when mounting it on the right side of the Headstock. The Bandsaw can only be run correctly from the left side of a conventional Headstock. The Belt Sander can be run correctly from either side of the Headstock having the drive shaft on both sides of the drive drum. Remember Bench Tubes are 3/4" longer than Way Tubes.

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