Shopsmith Forums

Wel I was pretty fed up with my crappy Skil 10" table saw. I got it many years ago on a really short budget and it has lived up to it's cheap price i.e. worthless! Takes longer to setup a cut on the damn thing than to make the cut which just blows IMHO. Now I have several Shopsmiths which as we all know can do tablesaw cuts quite adequately but it frustrates me having to take everything off the Shopsmith to put it into saw mode. So I was looking around on Craigslist for an inexpensive but nicer table saw than what i had. i found an ad right here in my city for a Delta 10" cast iron table saw for $50. I called the guy and went and looked at it. It was in pretty beat up shape but was solid and it ran so i told him I would give him $40 and he said sure. The fence was a step in the right direction from what I currently have and it had a mobile base with casters which my current POS saw does not have so moving it around the garage will be a lot easier. It is alos a lot quieter running than the current saw which is a big plus. So I am going to rip it apart and do a Shopsmith style renovation on it so it will be as good as new when I am done and be ripping wood very soon.

Good luck. I can certainly sympathize with not wanting to change over to table saw mode frequently if you are preforming other tasks.

My brother just acquired a 1950s Atlas Press table top saw and had to mill a whole new arbor for it. Delta part should be easier to find, though.

ddvann79 wrote:Good luck. I can certainly sympathize with not wanting to change over to table saw mode frequently if you are preforming other tasks.

My brother just acquired a 1950s Atlas Press table top saw and had to mill a whole new arbor for it. Delta part should be easier to find, though.

Switching to table saw mode really is a PIA as far as I am concerned and a tablesaw really should be setup and ready to go at all times and adjusted to spec without having to worry. I got the replacement headstock casting for the third Mark V I got the other day so I will be finishing that one up and might just keep it in tablesaw mode or possibly setup my Mark VII in table saw mode and keep it that way. Not sure but the Mark VII has a bigger table and is better suited to table sawing than the Mark V. Plus it has a better fence IMHO. Options.....Options...... but the Delta was only $40 so I won't be out much in the long run anyway.

wannabewoodworker wrote:Switching to table saw mode really is a PIA as far as I am concerned and a tablesaw really should be setup and ready to go at all times and adjusted to spec without having to worry. I got the replacement headstock casting for the third Mark V I got the other day so I will be finishing that one up and might just keep it in tablesaw mode or possibly setup my Mark VII in table saw mode and keep it that way. Not sure but the Mark VII has a bigger table and is better suited to table sawing than the Mark V. Plus it has a better fence IMHO. Options.....Options...... but the Delta was only $40 so I won't be out much in the long run anyway.

These are some of the reasons I bought so many Shopsmiths and have kept several older table saws in addition to buying the new Ridgid TS-3650 a few years ago.
I love Shopsmiths but I also love having dedicated tools I can keep sat up ready to use.
A table saw is number one of course, thus the TS-3650.
With the dual headed Push-me, pull me drill press I don't even see me ever really needing to lift another unit up into drill press mode (but I still can). I can make a setup of some kind on one side and still have the other side for odd drilling jobs instead of some work-around.
I think a bandsaw is going to become a more frequently used tool than one was in the past for me. The SS bandsaw, the SS jigsaw and my stand-alone scrollsaw can all do a lot of the cutting on small or short pieces that many guys blindly carry to the tablesaw and then (I firmly believe) get themselves into trouble by trying to cut some little piece 1/8" X 1/2" X 4" or the like using a huge motor and big screaming blade in a circumstance where it is hard to safely control...
I'm still quick to grab hand tools to do a lot of that little stuff.

"Flexibility" is the one constant word in all of my planning.

.

Until I got my SS bandsaw a couple of months ago i was one of those idiots trying to do impossible cuts with the wrong tool. Now the bandsaw has really made things so much simpler for me. I absolutely love this tool and it can do so many things and quickly too as it is on a dedicated power station.

wannabewoodworker wrote:Until I got my SS bandsaw a couple of months ago i was one of those idiots trying to do impossible cuts with the wrong tool. Now the bandsaw has really made things so much simpler for me. I absolutely love this tool and it can do so many things and quickly too as it is on a dedicated power station.

Ditto! All but the timing!!:)

So I was browsing the Lumberjocks site and ran across a thread where a guy put together his own DIY table saw fence using aluminum extrusions he got from some company out west. The thing was really sweet looking and as far as i could tell would be absolutely accurate and possibly rival a Biesmeyer in performance. So I followed a few links and did some research etc. and it looks like I could fashion the very same type fence on my new cheap table saw turning it into not such a cheap saw anymore as it has a nice cast iron table just not the best fence in the world. I sent the company I priced everything out on an email asking some additional questions and hope to hear back by Monday. It looks like for about $250.00 in parts you can put together a really nice and accurate table saw fence that is significantly cheaper than any aftermarket one as far as I can see.