Shopsmith Episode 9: “...Halfway to Paradise” - A Mid-Term Progress Report

I am a little over half way through the Shopsmith “Rusty” restoration project.  What has been the progress so far?  What’s remaining?  What would a Progress Report Card look like?  We address these issues and more in this mid-term episode.

Status

A little over three months have gone by since the harrowing recovery and extraction of Rusty in late August.  Some before pictures:

Over the past three months, the progress & activities include:

• Cleaned & painted the bench ends
• Built a new redwood platform
• Added new casters
• Cleaned the headstock & rebuilt the quill assembly
• Cleaned the baseplate, baseplate arm, carriage, headrest, tie bar, and tubular ways.
• Cleaned and rebuilt the speed changer
• Cleaned and rebuilt the Jacob’s Chuck
• Tested the motor
• Maintained a blog intertwined with cheap jokes and puns

Progress Photos to date:

OK - so far so good I suppose....but what might my report card look like?

Well, I’m glad my parents don’t have to read and sign the report card!

For those of you who may missed the first eight episodes, or simply can’t get enough of this blog and need more, here is a one-sentence synopsis of the progress and activites so far:

Episode 1: Late August - conduct Recon of Shopsmith in disgusting garage near high desert of California (hum theme song to Indiana Jones), return with reinforcements to extract Shopsmith & relocate to safe house in Skyforest, CA (hum theme song to Mission Impossible); Episode 2: a Shopsmith 101 tutorial (*yawn*); Episode 3:  Clean up Way Tubes (can you say Evapo-Rust?); Episode 4: Clean Headstock & rebuild quill assembly  (whew - spring still works); Episode 5:  Fire-up the motor (still can’t get out of the haz-mat suit); Episode 6: Clean up baseplate, tie bar, and other boring pieces; Episode 7:  Repaint bench ends & build new redwood platform (lookin’ good!); Episode 8: Clean & Rebuild speed changer (Can you calculate the final speed?).

Remaining Restoration Projects:

So what’s left to do?  The remaining restoration tasks include:

• Clean motor & bracket, & remount onto the Shopsmith
• Decide whether to repaint the motor and belt guard..or clean and leave as-is.
• Buy belts and align/adjust the drive train
• Pray that the bearings don’t need to be replace
• Fire up that sucker and see what happens
• Clean & rebuild the table
• Clean the Tailstock & tool rest
• Clean sanding disk & find sand paper which will fit
• Clean fence and table extension
• Clean and rebuild the 4” jointer
• Figure out what to do with a 4” jointer
• Look for something to build once it is all together
• Maintain the blog site with clever updates and maybe more expensive jokes

See you on the next blog update.