The Shopsmith Power Station / Crafter's Station Revisited

I wrote a post about the Shopsmith Power Station several years back (http://www.tool-hunter.com/shopsmith-posts/shopsmith-single-purpose-tools-spt-s-/shopsmith-power-station-crafters-station-information-history-review) that summarized the tool and talked a bit about it as well as the short-lived Crafter's Station.  If this tool interests you, and frankly, if you own a Mark V and two or more of the SPT's you really should have one, I'd like to share one interesting little fact that you might want to know.

The original Power Station was introduced in 1989 but one little "flaw" that it had was the moveable carriage that supports the SPT's (Special or Single Purpose Tool) was a little wobbly.  It wasn't that apparent with shorter tools, but the bandsaw was particularly prone to swaying towards the headstock when the stock was forcibly fed into the blade.  The illustration above is from the US Patent for the Power Station and on the left of the drawing and from the photo below you can see the original positioning and size of the carriage.

Original 1989 carriage design on Shopsmith Power Station 

Over time Shopsmith determined that the issue was caused by the way that the footprint of the carriage was causing the top of the sheet metal base to flex and their solution was to create a stamped steel carrier for the carriage to ride on that moved the forces closer to the rigid edges of the top, where the sheet metal gained rigidity from being bent downward toward the legs.  See photo below.

Gen 2  2-part Shopsmith Power Station carriage 

This fix solved the majority of the problem and just in time because what most of us didn't know was that hidden deep in the recesses of the R&D department was the soon to be released (1998) Crafter's Station, which added a table saw table to a stationary carriage which was bolted to the top of the stand tightly against the tool's headstock. It was around this time that Shopsmith created new tooling to diecast the carriage with a larger footprint, eliminating the need to make two parts for the task. This improved carriage was incorporated into both the Power Station and the Crafters Station from that point on. 

Gen 3 Shopsmith Crafter's Station & Power Station carriage

I'll post better photos of these details as they become available.

Here are a couple excellent threads on the Shopsmith Forum that will help you supe-up your Power Station or Crafter's Station by eliminating vibration and by addressing alignment issues with the tablesaw table on the Crafter's Station:

https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/maintenance-and-repair-f10/power-station-vibration-tamed--t12217.html

https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/maintenance-and-repair-f10/crafter-s-station-questionable-performance-t2206.html


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