I've been working on a jointer restoration project and I needed to rip and crosscut some 8/4 white oak to make a block for a knife sharpening jig to use with the conical disc sander. The jig also needs a 45 degree angle slot cut into an edge. My first thought was to use the Craftsman table saw. But the table saw was about 3 inches deep in stuff that I had stored on it, making it more table than saw.
I figured it would take me a good 20 minutes or more to put all that stuff away so I decided, with great trepidation, to set the Shopsmith up in table saw mode.
This turned out to be fairly straightforward. I dug out the Shopsmith-brand 50 tooth combination carbide tipped blade from the bottom of the proverbial box of stuff that came with my used Shopsmith. Checked the arbor on it which looked good, mounted it on the Shopsmith quill along with the lower and upper blade guards. Took my measurements, locked the rip fence in position and turned on the Shopsmith and gingerly ran it up to saw speed, expecting something catastrophic to happen. Everything sounded good, however, so I pushed the 8/4 oak through on the rip cut.
I kind of expected the blade to bog down and for billows of smoke to emerge from the 8/4 oak. Instead, to my delight and frankly surprise, the Shopsmith ripped through the 8/4 oak with no problem or hesitation and the cut looked pretty darn good.
Maybe not quite as smooth as the Forrest WWII that I use on my Craftsman saw, but pretty darn good nonetheless. A lot better than I ever got with my Craftsman saw before I souped it up with the Forrest blade and the Vega fence. Made me think that the cut would have been just as good if I had a Forrest mounted in the Shopsmith. Given the unexpected ease of the rip cut, I confidently set up the miter gauge and made the cross cut to length with similar results.So far so good! But now I had to make the 45 degree slot. Since the Shopsmith arbor doesn't tilt, this meant I had to do the cut by tilting the table to 45 degree -- a thing which filled me with dread as I remember a multitude of negative reviews I've seen on other sites about tilting the table in saw mode.
Well, the set up for the 45 degree cut took me a little while to figure out. To be honest, it took me a long while to figure out. I could not figure out how to align the blade with the slot of the tilted table. While I was cursing the machine and thinking about cleaning off my Craftsman saw to make the cut, I suddenly remembered to extend the quill and voila!
Now that I had the table height, table tilt and fence all set up, I was actually surprised about how secure the whole set up felt, considering that I was used to making bevel cuts with a tilt-arbor saw. In some respects the set up seemed more stable as the stock was nicely nestled between the table and the fence like a v-block. I turned on the Shopsmith, ran it up to table saw speed and used a push block and stick I made the 45 degree non-through cut without incident and the world did not end!
In summary, the Shopsmith seems to give very respectable results in table saw mode. On a non-tilted table cut, the set up is straight forward and with the 520 main and auxilliary and floating tables, you can make a pretty big, pretty solid surface.
Set up of the titled table is a little complicated the first time, with the main trick being to remember to extend the quill if you are having trouble clearing the blade slot with the table tilted.
Admittedly, the piece I was cutting in tilted table mode was relatively small and light (6 x 4 x 2). With a larger piece, it might be more cumbersome. And I'm not sure how I'd brace the table in a titled mode, if the piece was so large and heavy as to require bracing. Nevertheless, the Shopsmith seems to work as advertised in table saw mode and I won't hesitate to use it as a table saw again (especially since I may not get around to cleaning off my Craftsman table saw any time soon.
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