In article
,
Christopher Zona wrote:

Never underestimate the flexibility of a ShopSmith. When you're
working in a garage shop and the wife still wants to put the car in
there in the winter, the ShopSmith works wonders.

With a little ingenuity, you can figure out how to hook up all sorts
of components, especially with the older units made in the fifties. I
have been able to connect a small band saw and a small 4" jointer to
mine.

Well heck, they were made to do that. Of course you can increase
ingenuity required and decrease cost (usually) by adapting to something
non-SS for add-ons, but both jointer and bandsaw were made for them from
early days. I use the belt sander a lot. Jigsaw (not scrollsaw, and no
longer made) has been less useful. Don't have and have never been able
to justify cost of bandsaw (even used they are generally too costly - a
regular bandsaw makes more sense for the money)

Certainly for faceplate work, moving to the back spindle is the easy
reversing option for sanding.

I developed a kludge for low variable speed (without the stinking
overpriced & kludgy speed thing from SS) when my speed changer bearing
died and I had work to be done, didn't want to wait for parts before
doing it - strapped a variable speed DC motor to the ways, driving the
jointer shaft (which drives the main shaft, of course). I've since
picked up another (rather abused, but cheap) old greenie which I hope to
convert to internal DC motor drive, without the Reeves.

I have upgraded both my greenies to the newer poly-V drive - one via
shopsmith ($$$) and one via eBay (less $$$). The Gilmer belts not only
get annoying as they shed teeth, the toothed pulley was actually showing
heavy wear after a mere 50 years on my original (bought new by grandpa).

--
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