shopsmith connecting tube project tray

Hi,

This is a project for a shopsmith 505/510/520 and uses the connecting, either the 27” ones or the 5 footers. It clips to the tubes using “grip clips” (an item that has been around since before I was a kid for holding mops and brooms and what have you.) This set of grip clips is for 3/4” to 1-1/8” items so it falls in the good range for the 1” tubes. They have a really good grip which is why I went with only two of them.

I’ve pictured a few places where you might use them, the lathe, the drill press, the table saw… but really they will work where and when ever you can use the connection tubes. As you can see it is a simple tray and this one was build san power tools except for the vacuum cleaner used for clean up. I try to do several projects a year that use hand saws, hammers, finish nails, you know those hand tools.

The bottom was a piece of scrap 3/4” plywood and the sides pieces some left over pieces from a garden project earlier this spring. It is 26” wide which was the single cut needed on the plywood, the width was something like 13-3/16”. If you chose to build one then you can make it any size you want. The sides are 1-1/2 piece sitting on the 3/4” plywood making it 2-1/4” tall. This can also be adjusted to be either taller or shorter as you see fit.

The bottom shows some strips I added to eliminate the small amount of tipping that would happen without them. It also ensures that the screw heads don’t scrap the the tubes if you slid it into position. The last image show the clip more clearly in case you are not familiar with them.

This is only one of several projects I want to do using these clips, right now I think the count is up around 20… now if I only had the time to get them all done.

ELR

-- Knight of the Shopsmith