Shop Smith
 

I have been turning plugs freehand on an old ShopSmith "lathe" for the past few years. I am looking for a duplicator that will work with the shopsmith. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Hey saltyric, sorry to question on top of your question, but here goes anyway. I have the oppurtunity to get the use of a Shopsmith for a while. Do you find that you like using this tool? What RPM do you spin? Can you drill the through hole on this tool? Thanks, Rocketman

I have a shopsmith that My Dad bought when he was a kid (some 30 or 40 years ago). I mostly use it as a lathe, but the large disk sander comes in very handy. The table saw set up is sketchy at best. I am not sure what RPM, I speed it up and slow it down for different applications/different wood. I usually drill my plugs with a drill press. I have never tried drilling with it, although with a little bit of fixturing it would probably be great. Come to think of it, the shopsmith would be perfect for drilling. I may go home tonight and make a fixture to drill the plugs horizontally. Thanks for the idea.

My grandfather has a shop smith, and we drill holes horizontally with it, use it as a lathe, and sand with it. Last weekend we looked into a lathe. We found that shop smith likes to have a duplicator made by shop smith and its hard to find one that'll work with it made by other companys. The duplicator shop smith makes costs $400. This is what we were told when looking into them.

Thanks, I'm going to go borrow me a shopsmith!

Rocketman - Good deal. I'll let you know how it goes tonight with the horizontal plug drilling.....

I thru drill all my plugs horizontally. Much easier than vertically for me

shop smith experimentation!
 

I learned a few things about my shopsmith last night (I've only been using it for about 4 years!!!)
1) Horizontal drilling is fantastic. After a taking the time to set it up correctly, I drilled about 20 blanks and only had two mis-haps. One of which I was able to fix.
2) I had been turning at way to slow RPM. I cranked it up last night and got much better results.
3) If you want a REALLY smooth finish, sand while it's on the lathe as usual, then grab a handful of sawdust and run it up and down the plug while it's turning. This effectively polishes the plug.

horizontal drilling is called boring . vertical drilling is called drilling . Ive been wanting one of them for my home shop but find them very expensive for my wallet approx $3500 new . They last for ever ( as long as they are taken care of ) like saltyric said "dad had his for 30 40 years " . I bet with the lathe , sanding disk , horizontal boring , and table saw you can pretty much do any plug work .

sawdust is the bomb if you want or need a polished finish .

Well thanks for the inspiration, I wasn't sure that the shopsmith would be useful for plug making. A friend has 2 and said I can borrow one. Now try to catch him at home.