I'm still purchasing tools for my eventual part time, amateur bass shop. I came accross a Shopsmith in the newspaper for $900. It has a table saw, disc sander, jointer, drill press and lathe. I know that a table saw and lathe are not a high priority in bass building, but I would like to have a table saw for other projects anyway. Also: the drill press would act like a table top drill press. Are free standing drill presses needed to drill out the jack plug hole (due to the length of the body of the bass)?

I'm still looking to get a good bandsaw, table saw, jointer, and drill press.

Is the Shopsmith a good accurate tool or is it a poorly performing compromise for a number of tools?

Thanks, Bob

I too recently had the opportunity to look one of these things over and actually use it for a few hours. While it is enticing to not have to spend money on individual tool I found that having to make the conversions took a great deal of time and was really not at all to my liking.

The price was about the same too.

Luckily the only thing i need at this point is a spindle sander...and a drum sander...and a planer...and...


At any rate, IMO i would pass on that thing. I couldn't imagine what i'd do if the thing ever broke down.

Hey i did see a drill press for $49. the other day !

I did some more serching on MIMF.com and didn't see many nice things to say about the Shop Smith tools. I think I'm going to pass.