Latest purchase

Congrats on an awesome deal!

Just the slightest green with jealousy. lol

I loved my Shopsmith when I got it in the mid 80's. Eventually graduated to individual tools, but made a lot of stuff with it. Kind of a Harbor Freight thing that actually starts and works. Not for real precision work, but great for the home workshop. And the horizontal drill press is neat.

Wow. And like John said.

Way cool! Nice to get a bargain like that once in awhile.

Sweet - Pics?

No pics, it didn't happen

They were a pretty good tool. I used one for a while back in the 70s. I see one now on a local marketplace site for sale but they want $800 for it which still isn't a bad deal but I already have one of everything it can do.

honesttjohn said:

I loved my Shopsmith when I got it in the mid 80's. Eventually graduated to individual tools, but made a lot of stuff with it. Kind of a Harbor Freight thing that actually starts and works. Not for real precision work, but great for the home workshop. And the horizontal drill press is neat.

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I have most of the tools already which made it a somewhat difficult decision but I want the bandsaw, sanding station and the lathe so couldn't pass it up. The biggest problem right now is space...my garage is a total disaster and I have to get it organized before I can do anything else.

Charles I looked at prices too and figured if I don't use it I can sell it pretty easily.

I have a knock-off I bought from HF that was made from casting molds made form a Shopsmith after the patents expired for that model. I got the bandsaw, 6" jointer and 4" wide belt sander with it for less than the original Shopsmith without the extras. Over the years I have had to make a few repairs and could not get parts from HF so it has Shopsmith parts installed in place of the original parts. All but one part was a direct replacement, the one had to have a 5 minute modification made to it to work on my machine. I also have router collets for it along with the fence. It is buried in the back of the shop out of the way and I have thought about selling it several times to get more room in the shop. I did use it for horizontal boring on a project last year so I'm glad I had it.

You got a great deal and I think you can get a lot of use out of it.

Someone once gave me a Shopsmith. I turned it into a lathe and it worked pretty well. As a table saw it was scarry. I bought the big tool rest they sell and that was a very sweet lathe. The rest of the tools I already had and were better than the Shopsmith. I finally sold it and made some good money from something that was free. I had some money invested in it and I still see the Shopsmith come up on craigslist. Some people think theirs is coated with gold. My understanding is they are still made. I live in the south were we have no basement. Up north were people have basements and limited space a shopsmith could be useful.

There actually were some Shopsmiths that are factory painted gold, people call them goldies. I am just getting going with more serious woodworking and picked up a used Shopsmith to get started. The thing to keep in mind with the price is that there are numerous generations, upgrades and accessories that can make the used value range from low $100's to several thousand dollars. I just finished building a router table to mount on mine! Once the Urethane cures I will put it all together and post some pictures.