ShopSmith shutting down - up for sale

[Crazyraceguy]

If you watch the last video I linked above, he's using his ShopSmith as a table for his laptop.

Adjustable height table.....best use for it. That's what mine is doing.

 

[tdorey]

Looks like shopsmith has been sold to a buyer. Likely details in January. Glad to see this useful well made machine stays alive.

 

[mino]

The best that can happen is some India national gets it for the IP and moves production to India where it can still be /commercially/ viable for a couple decades more. That way parts can stay available for the secondary market.

Do some development on accessories so the strong points - lathe, sander, drill press - become more full-functional/contemporary and I can see it selling again. There is so much that can be improved with today's low cost of CNC-ing accessories. Any time I looked at it /is pretty much unknown in Europe/ it seemed just stuck in the 1980s, tech-wise.

 

[ChuckS]

No woodworkers -- young or old -- in our local club I know have any interest in the all-in-one type of machine. Like the free radial arm saws I get to see on Kijiji or garage sales from time to time, I wouldn't take it even if offered to me free. My shop space is too precious for any of them. Good luck to whoever has invested in the shopsmith business.

The Canadian chain House of Tools was acquired by a US company but was closed and used just for taxation purposes. It remains to be seen how the new business model for shopsmith would look like.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

No woodworkers -- young or old -- in our local club I know have any interest in the all-in-one type of machine. Like the free radial arm saws I get to see on Kijiji or garage sales from time to time, I wouldn't take it even if offered to me free. My shop space is too precious for any of them.

Exactly. I see it as nothing but a space hog at this point. While I was still working, it wasn't that big of a deal. Now that I have moved everything home, it takes up space that I could be using more effectively.
I'm still not sure I could give it away though, so it might get disassembled and stored in the basement. The stand is a big wooden thing, that was built sometime before I ever saw it. That can get recycled into something better, freeing up quite a bit of space, in a smaller side room.

 

[SoonerFan]

I can't bring myself to get rid of it

It's downright dangerous as a tablesaw.

I was the same way with a Craftsman table saw that had been in my family decades. Moved it for house to house. After years of zero use, I finally got rid of it because it was wore out and was dangerous. In fact I got rid of it when the city had one of those days they pick up anything you place at the curb. I put it out in three parts and scrapers took all three parts before the city arrived. I did not want anyone taking the entire saw, attempting to use it and getting hurt.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Yeah @SoonerFan if I really wanted it gone, all it would take is putting it out back, near the alley. It would be gone within an hour or so. Metal evaporates back there