Shopsmith #'s 4, 5, 6, and 7....I am NOT a collector...I am NOT a collector...

Sometimes when I’m relaxing in my shop, I doze off and I have this re-occurring dream. I’m on a flying saucer (not a space ship, but rather one of those aluminum dishes that you use in the winter like a sled). I take a run and leap on at the edge of a huge drop off from the peak of a monstrous snowy mountain… and down I go…plummeting and spinning out of control.

The only way to try to control yourself on one of these things is to drag one foot or the other to change direction, and even that is not too precise. (Remember, I live in Wisconsin, so I know about these things)

The slope is slippery and littered with obstacles, but not your typical kind like rocks and trees. No, it’s littered with Shopsmiths.

As I race down the hill, I try to avoid a disastrous collision, I really do, but it seems that I don’t have enough control. They’re like magnets, drawing me to them. I can’t avoid collisions, and because of their magnetic nature they attach themselves to me. This makes me heavier and even less able to maintain control of the saucer, so I collide with even more of them.

Soon I look like a kind of bizarre Shopsmith train, with me & my saucer as the engine, careening down the slippery slope. Usually this is when I wake up, look around at my 3 Shopsmiths, and see that it was all just another dream….

But not this time….

This time, as I looked around the shop, I saw Shopsmith’s 4,5, 6, and 7. Two good ones, one project, and one parts machine. (Actually not a bad mix if you’re a collec…no, I’m not, I’m a hobbyist, or a restorer, or something…) All 4 are “greenies”. You Shopsmith guys might know what that means. They are the first version of the Mark 5 built in the mid to late 1950’s. Fundamentally the same as the current “Smith” with a couple of internal differences, but they work the same, and work well.

It looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me, and none of it, at least for a while, will involve wood. Oh well, I’ve got to look at the greater good, the long term goal. More tools mean more fun and more woodworking, right? Right? (better living through more tools…I think I heard that somewhere)

Is there a 12 step program out there for guys like me??? Help. -SST

-- Accuracy is not in your power tool, it's in you