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As much as possible, I subscribe to the Alton Brown’s kitchen philosophy in my shop: the only uni-tasker I want is the fire extinguisher. That’s less possible in the shop than the kitchen…it’s kind-of hard to find a second or third use for sockets or screwdrivers. Every once in a while, though, you come across a really useful multiple purpose tool. Like my grandfather’s radial arm saw, there are a few gems that can do many things well. I started out looking for some way to add a table saw to the shop alongside my grandfather’s radial arm saw, but didn’t want a one-trick pony.
A year ago, I didn’t know what a ShopSmith was. It’s a multiple-use shop tool with two primary models: the Mark V with 5 functions (table saw, drill press, horizontal boring, lathe, disc sander) and Mark VII with 7 (all the mark V, plus over/under routing and over/under shaping). I saw a Mark VII at a woodworking show early in 2018, and thought it would be awesome to eventually have one. Courtesy of craigslist, I found a guy about an hour away who was selling his Mark V. He doesn’t get around well enough to get out into his shop any more, which is a shame, but I promised his machine a good home. We made a deal, and the challenges began.
Challenge 1
A Shopsmith weighs about 250 pounds and is 6 feet long. Getting it into my 4-wheel-drive truck was a bit of a task. In addition to the weight of the machine, my truck is a bit higher off the ground than many, and it has a 5 1/2-foot bed. Add my cross-bed toolbox, and there is even less room back there. Luckily, I had watched a lot of videos about the machine, including one on how to (reasonably) easily load it in a vehicle.
First, my friend Tony and I slid the headstock to one end and locked it in place. We lifted the light end onto the tailgate, then unlocked and pushed the headstock to the upper end. After locking it in place, we were able to lift the other end and roll the machine into the truck. The easy part was done.
It didn’t quite fit, even diagonally, with the tailgate down. We moved the headstock to the end of the way tubes at the rear of the truck. We then lifted the “light” end onto the toolbox and secured it with a ratchet strap. Using a second strap, we tied down the end at the rear of the truck, and we were on our way back home.
Challenge 2
When I looked it over initially and tested to make sure the motor sounded all right, I noticed that the speed control slipped a little bit and a few parts/accessories were missing. Considering I was paying far less than retail for it, I figured I could tune it up reasonably inexpensively. The gentleman had previously sold off some accessory attachments, and some standard parts went with it. I knew I needed parts, but didn’t know quite how many, so I waited to order anything until I did a full inspection.
Tear-down is the subject of the next article in this series, then I’ll move into cleaning and repair. Third will be reassembly, then finally alignment and testing. Stay tuned…there’s lots of fun to be had!