Someone offered me a Shopsmith

[Turin39789]

Should I take it? It's an old one and he needs the garage space. I don't have a spot for it right now but may in the garage at the next house. Just not sure if I should take up the hobby.

 

[waggy]

wtf is a shopsmith?

 

[gothamhunter]

wtf is a shopsmith?

I didn't know either, but 5 seconds of Googling told me.

Take it off his hands and hang onto it. Would make for a great front-yard decoration piece.

 

[God Mode]

Melt it down and turn it into a statue of Bill Clinton.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

It's a good all purpose tool and doesn't take up much space. At least compared to the volume and workspace needed for dedicated tools to do all the same jobs.

 

[WHAMPOM]

wtf is a shopsmith?

A floor model multipurpose wood working tool, using one motor to power attachments, table saw, drill press, lathe, router, jointer, band saw, etc. Many tools in a small amount of floor space.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Never heard of these before till I googled, that sounds like an awesome tool for a garage too small to have dedicated tools. Yeah definitely take it.

 

[Greenman]

I used to have one. It's a very well made piece of equipment, and works surprisingly well. For a weekend wood worker it's dream.

 

[gorcorps]

For free? Fuck yeah you take it. I live in a small apartment and I'd still figure out a way to take it in.

 

[waggy]

A floor model multipurpose wood working tool, using one motor to power attachments, table saw, drill press, lathe, router, jointer, band saw, etc. Many tools in a small amount of floor space.

in that case FUCK yes.

take it and use it. i want to set up a wood working shop so bad. but the shit is expensive.

 

[Turin39789]

in that case FUCK yes.

take it and use it. i want to set up a wood working shop so bad. but the shit is expensive.

My big worry is exactly that. He picked up the shopsmith from an old lady years ago and it was his gateway into woodworking. I picked up a nice 17" drill press awhile back just because the price was right and have never used it. Thinking I will hand that off as a trade and have him show me the ropes some.

Also have baby number 2 showing up in a few weeks, and baby number one pretty much killed my garage time to work on my VW, so who knows when I will fit this in.

Am definitely thinking I will take it though.

 

[ultimatebob]

My dad got one of those a while back and hated it. He said that it was junk, but I think that he was really annoyed about having to constantly reconfigure the thing for what he was working on. He ended up getting a separate table saw, router, band saw, and drill press to replace it. He also turned the entire garage into a wood shop in the process

 

[lxskllr]

My big worry is exactly that. He picked up the shopsmith from an old lady years ago and it was his gateway into woodworking. I picked up a nice 17" drill press awhile back just because the price was right and have never used it. Thinking I will hand that off as a trade and have him show me the ropes some.

Also have baby number 2 showing up in a few weeks, and baby number one pretty much killed my garage time to work on my VW, so who knows when I will fit this in.

Am definitely thinking I will take it though.

It doesn't have to be for full blown projects. It's useful just making parts for routine stuff. I hardly ever use my drill press, but when I need it, hardly anything else will do.

 

[Turin39789]

It doesn't have to be for full blown projects. It's useful just making parts for routine stuff. I hardly ever use my drill press, but when I need it, hardly anything else will do.

The shopsmith offer came up because I am casing a door into our laundry room that had been finished in drywall and needed to shave the door jambs down so the new door would fit. Tried half assing it on my dad's pos table saw before taking out there and touching it up with his nice table saw and running it through a planer.

Having the right tool for the job helps immensely 90% of the time. Though I am a little worried that the 5 in 1 tool is a bit of a compromise, I also know very little about woodworking so won't be going nuts anytime soon.