Shopsmith Forums

I worked in a cabinet/furniture shop from 1978 to 1983, and among all the nice commercial cast-iron machinery there was a forlorn little Shopsmith Model 500. No one paid much attention to it, but I learned to use it and put it to work. I remember being impressed with what it could do, and thought maybe I might get one for myself someday.

Well, fast-forward to 2019, and that thought bubbled its way back to the surface and lo and behold, I dragged home a Mark V Model 510 the other day. While it was in excellent condition overall, it had been neglected over the years since it was made in 1998. I spent the better part of the last two days disassembling, cleaning, lubricating, adjusting, tuning, and reassembling. The sheaves had never been lubricated and were seized, I got those freed up and and oiled. Everything's humming smoothly now. There's a bunch of stuff not shown in these pictures too, but here's a few before and after shots.

It also came with a SS 11" band saw, which wasn't that important to me since I have a nice Delta 14" of about the same vintage, but it still was a nice cherry on top of what I felt like was already a pretty good deal. I'll be prowling around the forums getting reacquainted with these machines. Thanks for everything I've learned here already, even before I registered!

Welcome! You will find a wealth of information here and people that are willing to help with any issue. Just ask. That is a nice looking machine.

Really Nice. It appears to be of the same vintage as mine BUT yours looks to be in much better condition. I hope that you get as much or more enjoyment from it as I have mine.

Welcome back!

The results of your efforts clearly shows in the later pix.

Welcome to the forum.

Any question is fair game!

Did you free up both movable sheave pulleys?

She shined up good!

You might come to like having a second bandsaw. A lot of guys keep a resaw blade on one, and a narrow blade on the other, for cutting curves. Beats having to change the blade all the time.

JPG wrote:Any question is fair game!

Did you free up both movable sheave pulleys?

If I understand your question correctly to mean both the motor sheave and the idler shaft sheave, then yep, I did. I almost had to grow a third arm to have enough hands to get that dang retaining ring back on while compressing the spring on the motor sheave, though.

Since y'all are so generous with your knowledge, I'll pose another question: What's this table intended for? The posts have rack teeth cut in them indicating they go into the carriage. (In the picture the spacing between posts is only 12" but I found if you flip the inboard bracket around they are 16" C-C same as the carriage.)

It doesn't look homemade.

Welcome to the forum!

That table is for the lathe duplicator. It fits the older 500 series machine with the legs in one position and the newer 510/520 in the other position.

Ed

Do you have the rest of the lathe duplicator?

Perhaps posting a pix of all that came with it will help us help you identify it all

JPG wrote:Do you have the rest of the lathe duplicator?

Sadly, no. That's the only thing out of the haul I couldn't identify.

I also got the lower assembly from a Magna-branded jigsaw, but somewhere along the line the owner had lost the tube arm with all its appurtenances, so it's useless at this point.