Dang it! This is My Ripping Hat!

One thing that people who have never used a Shopsmith tool will point to as a fault of the 10er and the Mark V is the size of the table on the saw and the fact that it tilts rather than the blade.

I'll admit that if I had to rip a lot of miters on the edges of large plywood panels that the Shopsmith wouldn't be my first choice. But then again, neither would a table saw. Give me a panel saw for this task any day.

In the interest of full disclosure I own a PowerMatic 66 tablesaw, as well as a Shopsmith-made tablesaw, but surprisingly when I have fine detailed cuts to do I am always standing in front of my Mark V. Perhaps it's because it's easy to get in close, or because I like the guard, fence and miter gauge so much, but either way it's just a better saw when I have parts of the size that make sense for a saw like this. Oddly enough my Mark V can cut through a thicker board (3 1/4") than my PM66 (3 1/8"), though the 1 1/8HP motor can't compare with the 5hp of the PM66.

This photo was taken in 1949 by Life Magazine photographer Peter Stackpole, five years before Magna introduced the now-famous Shopsmith Miter Gauge Pistol Grip.

P.S. Nice guard.

No comments:

Post a Comment

You Aint Seen Nothin' Yet!

If you happened to land on this page via a Google search, you aint seen nothin' yet! Click the title at the top of this page to see this blog in it's entirety.