Shopsmith Forums

fiatben wrote:When the local craigslist shows a Shopsmith for $100, you gotta go look, right? Even if it's a rusted out hunk of junk, I can't just let it go to the scrap metal people. At least I got him to come down $20 on the price.

Man, this thing is ROUGH! This will be a serious, and yet fun (I hope), challenge to my skills.

These are the pics on craigslist (I forgot to take my camera). It looks even worse in reality.
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And this is what it looks like in a Fiat 124 Spider (who needs a truck?)
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More to come...

JPG40504 wrote:I would not attempt turning on the motor until after disassembly and cleanup etc. It appears to have been sitting in water? but that would require the louvered vent in the motor pan to have been plugged. Also suspicious since the(a) PO removed the belt cover.

2" pvc cut to about 5", capped(one end glued, one end plugged) and a 3/4" capped(glued both ends)[to fill the center of the ss tubes thus requiring less evaporust] Length short enough to allow plugging 2" pipe with 3/4" pipe inside ss tube. Takes about a pint of evaporust(buy a gallon!!!).

Realize evaporust eats black oxide(blox). LIGHT wire brushing may be better on quill and other 'exposed blox parts.

Lotta cleaning up to do, but it will clean up purty gud!

I hope you meant 5' long instead of 5" cause otherwise, this arrangement might be pretty amusing. Also, do you fill the 3/4" tube with anything before you seal it (water, sand, etc.)? It might make pouring the Evaporust in a little easier.

fiatben wrote:I'm kinda getting some mixed signals from this unit.

A little background: owner's mom bought this for him while he was in high school (I'm guessing early '80s) so it was probably a used unit. He said it had started tripping the breaker when turned on. He had a friend who diagnosed it as motor problems. He was going to scrap it then thought maybe someone would want it for parts.

Serial number 36063 (appropriate since this is my 3rd SS) would indicate a build date of December 1959. My learnings (thanks to this forum primarily) would say this should be an "A" casting and the smaller motor. It is a Gilmer drive with a single bearing quill. However, this casting has the big access hole behind the nameplate and it also has an 1-1/8 HP motor. While I didn't specifically ask, I was under the impression that the previous owner had not done any upgrades. He primarily used it for a lathe back when it was used at all.

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The motor had a little dirt in it and the paint is peeling off the casing. Once I had it out of the headstock, I plugged it in and flipped the switch. It runs very smooth and very quiet (and makes me very happy!)

I suspect the sheaves were the real problem. The floating and fan sheaves seem locked in a "closed" position and the idler/control sheaves are stuck wide open. The belt (still bearing the Shopsmith stamping) shows wear on the sides like I would expect in this case.

So now I'm off to search for how to rebuild/repair the sheaves and speed control assembly.

SDSSmith wrote:I hope you meant 5' long instead of 5" cause otherwise, this arrangement might be pretty amusing. Also, do you fill the 3/4" tube with anything before you seal it (water, sand, etc.)? It might make pouring the Evaporust in a little easier.