I love mine.

There has been a Shopsmith in the family for at least 40 years. When the Mark V broke a support beam my father went out and bought a Mark 7. Now the Mark 7 is no longer being oficailly supoted by the Shopsmith company, and versions of the mark v are apparently back on sale.

the company seems ot have changed hands, or at least distributors, numerous times over the past few decades, and at times it has been difficult to find parts -- but they have always been obtainable.

Band saw blades are a unique size, and usually you won't find them at Home Depot, but almost every online dealer in bandsaw blades knows the size and can supply your needs.

The table saw has a small table, but the bed of the tool offers two spots (one on the left , the other on the right) where you can locate a narrow extension table on which you can mount your fence. You can rip 4 x 8 plywood panels lengthwise, or crosscut them widthwise by carefully positioning the motor unit, the table, and the extension table.

Shopsmith long ago recognized the desire to use some of the tools in a freestanding form and sold a separate stand or mount for them. You added a motor and some pulleys, converting these attachments to freestanding tools, which could still be interchanged as desired -- either on the secondary stand, or on the main Shopsmith unit.

While the shopsmith did many functions, eventually my father added a radial arm saw. tablesaw, drill press, shaper and 6 inch planer/joiner to his shop. essentially duplicating the most used functions on his shopmsith. This gave him the opportunity to have TWO similar tools setup at the same time, though. For example, he could set up the shopsmith to rip plywood sheets to make cabinet sides, and then run those parts through the tablesaw, which was fitted with a dado head. Unfortunately, I only inherited the shopsmith and the radial arm saw.

I have not seen a surface planer attachment for the Shopsmith, and I don't know if one is made, or ever was. There is a method for making a surface sander, though. You turned a large diameter cylinder on the lathe, and wrappped it with sandpaper. The saw table could then be mounted under that cylinder, at whatever distance you desired. You would pass the wood parts to be sanded over the table, and under the spinning sanding cylinder.

For woodstrip boats (canoes and kayaks) the particular advantage of the shopsmith would be the bandsaw attachment. While the table is typical of bandsaws (small) you can use a 1/2 inch wide blade for ripping strips, and the table and extension table can be adjusted as outfeed tables which will support strips of at least 8 to 12 feet, (and maybe longer). You are on your own for an infeed table that will support long stock, and a long fence to guide things.

If you do not want to play with the lathe idea mentioned above, for surface sanding strips a common drum sander atachment can be chucked into the motor, and the table adjusted just under it. Put a fairly coarse snading cylinder on your sanding drum, set the distance to whatever thickness you want your final strips, and pass them through slowly.

The 12 inch sanding disk is a gem, as someone has already mentioned, and does a nice job on scarfing those 1/4 inch strips. Just clamp a wedge with the appropriate taper to your fence and feed your strips against that. With 100 grit, or slightly coarser (80 grit) it is as fast as sharpening a pencil. I've also used it to square off the ends of strips before butting them together when I use butt joints. This removes the discolored ends from the strips and the joints are less noticeable.

I can't remember ever using the shaper attachment, but if it takes 1/2 inch diameter shaper bit shafts then it seems like it might be a cost effective alternative to getting either a 1/2 inch router or a dedicated shaper for cutting bead and coves on strips.

Overall, I think the Shopsmith is a great tool for a hobbyist, or a carpenter who needs some of these tools some of the time. Obviously a commercial shop is going to go with standalone tools so they can save production time.

If you can get one cheap, and have the room to store all the accessories, go for it.

Hope this helps.

Paul G. Jacobson