Shopsmith owners.

[Tim Cottle]

I have found a '57 shopsmith on craigslist,
http://maine.craigslist.org/tls/1579179675.html
is this a good deal? I dont have a lathe or decent drill press, or sander, I dont know if I can get this many features for this amount elsewhere, for some reason decent used equipment does not seem to hit locally very often.
Thanks all.

[Charles Lent]

I have an old Shopsmith that I use for a lathe. As a lathe it satisfies my occasional lathe needs. It also makes a fair drill press, but I have both a table model and a floor model, so I never use it for that. Lifting it up into the vertical position takes considerable effort too and is not something that I would choose to do very often. I have never used mine as a sander, as I have one of them too, but it does make a fairly good horizontal boring machine. As a table saw it is a bit scary, especially when trying to cut a bevel on the tilted table. The whole saw blade is exposed too, both above and below the table, which is quite dangerous, especially when you are in a habit of keeping tools on the bed below the Shopsmith.

Charley

[Jerome Hanby]

Shopsmiths seem to last forever, but for $350 I'd think you could find one a bit newer than that. I won't swear, but I don't think those greenies had the 1 and 1/8 hp motors