Shopsmith Forums

So, a bit of an odd question...

I don't own a ShopSmith, but my grandfather did... and I've recently begun my own foray into woodworking.

I ran across a copy of 'Woodworking Projects' that are collections of patterns from Hands On Magazine, and looking through it, it became *very* clear to me that *this* is where my grandfather was getting his patterns from... I still have *dozens* of toys/kitchen gadgets he made.

So, here's the ask... I'd like to sort of 'connect' with my grandfather, and remake these things for my own kids (and soon-to-have grandkids) and would love to track down copies of Hands On magazine for them.

Is there *anywhere* that digital copies exist that I can get/purchase/whatever?

I *know* there's a Facebook Group, but I keep getting declined for membership because I don't own a ShopSmith.

At the very least, is there a master list of issues, so that if I end up buying them off eBay, I can be somewhat assured I have the complete set?

Thanks,

treknoid,

Welcome to the Shopsmith Forum. Owning a Shopsmith is not a requirement here so again welcome.

I don't know of a location to find digital copies of the old, printed Hands On magazine. The ones I have collected mostly came with Shopsmith tools I have purchased to restore. You can find them for sale at online auctions. Since you have some of the items your grandfather made, they could be used as patterns to "re-create" them.

Hands On! began with the Sept/Oct 79 issue and replaced the Shavings from Shopsmith newsletter. I don't recall when it ended but did continue at least through 1989.

This excel spreadsheet shows you information on all 54 issues of Hands On that were published.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070804005 ... /index.htm

Found this page using the Wayback Machine, might help with some plans.

Hi Treknoid;

Not sure if this will be helpful or not, if you are interested in collecting the Hands On magazine itself, but if you are primarily interested in projects that appeared there, you might want to look into finding books in the Woodworking Projects Yearbooks series published by Popular Science once a year from 1985 to 1991.
The series contains a wealth of projects geared toward the Shopsmith. I believe that many, maybe all??, of these projects first appeared in Hands On.

Best of Luck,

Ed

stephen_a._draper wrote: ↑Sun Jun 16, 2024 12:42 am This excel spreadsheet shows you information on all 54 issues of Hands On that were published.

Hands On.xlsx

Thanks! That was hugely helpful!

As a thank you, I've updated your DM Column with the DM numbers from the ones I've managed to collect so far

What are Columns D & E in the spreadsheet?

On the back page at the bottom were numbers. That is what columns D and E are.