Raising the shopsmith

cmccarter1 · Post by **cmccarter1** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 9:35 am

Have any of you taller turners raised you shopsmith up to a workable height? If so what did you use and is it stable?

chester

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 2:52 pm

I'm not that tall (5'10" or 5'11"), but the little bit of turning on the SS I've done has been hard on my already easily strained back.

I haven't tried it yet, but my thought is to glue several 2x6's or 2x8's (that are slightly longer than the width of the SS legs) together for whatever height is needed and rout out a slot for the bottom of the legs to fit in (create one set of glued-up 2x's for each end). I also wonder about the stability, but it wouldn't have to be raised a whole lot for my needs, so I think it might work.

If you're taller, this might not work, but maybe you could use 2x10's for a bit larger foundation.

Sorry I didn't really answer you're question, but I thought I'd throw out my potential solution.

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 3:00 pm

cmccarter1 wrote:Have any of you taller turners raised you shopsmith up to a workable height? If so what did you use and is it stable?

chester

I'm 6'0". I've taken to using a nice wood stool when I turn at the lathe for very long. Same thing for when filing/sawing on things at my work-bench.

terrydowning · Post by **terrydowning** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 3:09 pm

I'm 6'2" While the lathe is a bit low, I don't find the height painful. When working for a long time with the lathe, I find that working different spots of a project and changing positions helps on the comfort factor.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 3:58 pm

There was a four part series in The Home Shop Machinist that detailed a number of changes to the Mark 5 to make it into a metal milling machine. One of changes made was to raise the height of the lathe. They did this by cutting each of the legs and inserting a riser in each one.

Underdog · Post by **Underdog** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 5:34 pm

Dusty, do you happen to have that complete article? I managed to a couple of segments of it, but never read the whole thing...

mizedog · Post by **mizedog** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 10:10 pm

I'm 6'4" and it's PAINFUL for me. I try to raise one foot on a stool for a few minutes, then switch to the other foot. However, I would really like to get a nice stool, or design removeable riser. The table saw is right for me, though.

jm51 · Post by **jm51** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 2:57 pm

Remove the sheet metal legs and bolt the SS to a smaller version of a Jack-Bench?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXKgedybpvU

beeg · Post by **beeg** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 3:28 pm

Hey I LOVED that video of the bench. THANKS for posting it.

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Fri Apr 29, 2011 11:34 pm

Underdog wrote:Dusty, do you happen to have that complete article? I managed to a couple of segments of it, but never read the whole thing...

Here is a link to getting all the articles by that author:
http://www.shopmachineadventures.com .