How do you leave your Shopsmith

[chiroindixon]

Okay...I'm the guy that set Ed a tither.....

I clean up every night.....or several times during a project. I can't track sawdust into the house. My 13 X 19 shop is a room in the basement. SWMBO will have a fit, plus the next room is my professional office.

Being an old soldier, I see that the old flyboy Dusty, has habits the Air Force drilled him on. No FOD...Flying Objects and Debris....Big No Go. I ran my M1A1 repair shops the same way....

Now...Ed and Co. See how he leaves his SS setup? I do the basically the same. Why break it down each night when in this configuration? It rolls around in the same "footprint" that SS brags on. And, I can tell you, the dust cover fits it nicely, even if you leave the saw guard, rip fence a/o a miter sled on top. BTW...Everything in my shop is on rollers......I can reconfigure or clean my shop much easier.....

Now I've read Dusty's frustration in keeping it all in alignment. I had the same experience. Now....Find a spot, square it all up...then set it all in place with the old style stop collars. I keep my table/blade height at the correct height to cut 8/4....

I believe I got this idea at a TA years ago and now lock the position of each table height with the old, solid stop collars. Once I was happy with all the tables ( mine is set like Dusty's) I set stop collars on EACH attachment. I also have two on my bandsaw run on a dedicated Power Station....but it jumps over to the MarK V with no hassle....Lines right up....

Now, if I chose to go to Lathe Mode, I lift the Tables off, and carefully set them aside.

BTW....See my "Shopsmith Safety Switch'' on the rival site...SSUG.ORG. My shop size, etc. you can guesstimate. For the safety freaks, I have three OFF switches.....One on the extension box, second with the Red Switch (with can be removed)...and finally my "Kick Switch" which I recommend to all of you. I love it.

Going back to "Saw Mode" is easy. Tables drop right back onto main frame to correct height....I double check real quick with a level/square....Off I go...No problems...I haven't had to readjust in a long time.

Aligning a Mark V, is a major PITA and takes time and patience. despite having a Jackson Alignment tool. Just watch the Nick video. Getting it right. then treating it with care and respect, if one wants to do nice work, is paramount. Those older stop collars, and some TLC, keeps my SS dead on.

Now if its' operator was just as squared away......That molding today had me in brain cramps...."Cut crown molding upside down" ?

Doc

[Ed in Tampa]

I participated in four years of Industrial Shop while I was in high school. During that time, Mr. Thompson taught me that I could not call a days effort complete until the shop was clean. If I leave the shop in a mess, to this very day, Mr. Thompson reminds me that I have not cleaned up properly. I have gone back to the shop many times to complete this routine cleanup so that I could sleep.

Mr. Thompson would have me break down all the setups and return equipment to their proper storage area. For Mr. Thompson that was the tool crib. I don't have a tool crib but the tools all have designated storage locations. Before I quit, tools get returned to their proper locations.

Some photos of a standard "end of day" in my shop.

Dusty
We had the same shop teacher only when he was teaching me he used the name Mr. Kipp. Man the things that man taught me!!!! I still can't lay a hand plane down on anything but it's side. At the end of each class the shop had to sparkle with everything in it's place.

However Dusty it looks like you have your Shopsmith more or less permanently set up for sawing and routing. What do you do when you want to drill something? Or turn on the lathe?
Ed

[scottss]

I too had a shop teacher like yours. Near the end of the period he or one of his assitants would yell out clean up time. On the wall was a posting of your duties for the week. We had a state of the art shop back then. We had a huge cyclone vacume system that was mounted outside and had a gutter running to each machine there was also several air cleaners and a separate room for finishing. Back then we (my folks) didn't have much money to spend on wood so I would build boxes and shelves mostley, I could use scraps and it didn't cost anything. I did turn some mugs and bowls also which my mom still has. My teacher would grade with a point system, A=10 points per day. I got a lot of A's but they where all usally worth 10 points. We also had a 24" planer which I still go up to the school and use now and then even after 30+ years.

[dusty]

Ed in Tampa

Yes, what you see is the Shopsmith set in the saw mode with the router table set up on the left end but this doesn't hinder my changing modes.

I must pull off the extension table on the right side along with anything attached to the right side extension table. That is common for everyone. From that point on, going vertical or to the lathe function is the same as for you.

What may not be apparent is that the router table interfers with nothing. That is where it resides nearly all the time. The jointer used to reside there but I have moved it to the Power Station so that I can have the router table.

The belt sander and scroll saw reside on a common power stand (not a Power Station).

scottss

Shop was pretty much the same for me but I didn't get the 10 points. I was always slow in completely my cleanup chores.

[Ed in Tampa]

Ed in Tampa

Yes, what you see is the Shopsmith set in the saw mode with the router table set up on the left end but this doesn't hinder my changing modes.

I must pull off the extension table on the right side along with anything attached to the right side extension table. That is common for everyone. From that point on, going vertical or to the lathe function is the same as for you.

What may not be apparent is that the router table interfers with nothing. That is where it resides nearly all the time. The jointer used to reside there but I have moved it to the Power Station so that I can have the router table.

The belt sander and scroll saw reside on a common power stand (not a Power Station).

Dusty
Now you got me interested! Tell me about your router table.
From the picture is looks like you attach it to the left side of an Aux table in the left of the Headstock postion. Then you run two extendable legs down to a cross bar you have mounted on the lower leg of the SS.

Did you build the router table or is SS's table? If you built it how about some details.
Also on the support system can you give us a little more detail, like exactly how you mounted the cross bar?

Exactly how many aux and floating table do you have? I think I see 2 Aux and 4 floating.
Ed

[dusty]

Ed in Tampa

Your interpretation of the photos is correct. My router table and the left extension table are now an eternal pair. The outer edge is supported by a pair of SS telescopic legs. That is going to change. I'm going to use two fixed lengths of emt and free up the telescopic legs to use elsewhere.

The router table is Shopsmith 555995. You could easily build your own but you would loose the benefit of the SS rip fence.

If you have converted from 510, this would be a good opportunity to repurpose the 510 table rails.

I have two auxillary tables and two floating tables. In the photos you see these plus the router table and the main table. I also have a second main table but you do not see it is these photos.

[Ed in Tampa]

dusty
I can't find a picture of that the router table. If I do a search on the Item # I get a hit but no real description or picture.

If I look in the catalogue I see Router table 555658 which had the fence mounted on the table.

I also see the pro fence table 521962

Do you know of any pictures of the 555995 or description.

How did your table come? Did the fence rails come with it?

Changing the adjustable supports makes sense no point in tying up two adjustable legs for a job EMT will do just as well if not better.

You mentioned if I upgraded from the 510 this would be good place to put the tubular fence rails to work. In what way?

Incidentally I do have a spare 510 main table that I machined to use as a router table. The only problem is the router mounts directly to the table. Not as convenient for changing bits or storage. Right now I use 2 adjustable legs and clamp it my work bench and use a jig over my old 510 fence as a router fence. I guess I could mount it to my SS Aux table, hadn't even thought of that since the fence rail systems are so different. But now that I think about it the Aux fence would be a perfect holder for the two rail tubes I now clamp down to my work bench.

I guess I'm going to have to spring for a new Aux table so I can have one at both ends of the SS and then either use my machined up router table or get one like you have attached to the aux table for my router needs.

Ed