Menards Shopsmith Clone

[John Hartmus II]

Has anyone heard of a Shopsmith clone bearing the name "Menards P. H. D."?
My Dad jus bought one at an auction and it needs a top belt. Any
suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks,
John Hartmus II
E-Mail ***@bright.net

[Mike Paulson]

I have one. Menards is a Home Depot type place with generally lower
prices. There's a chain of them in the upper midwest including Wausa WI
where my parents live, but they have an even better home supply store
there called Fleet Farm - generally outstanding prices, best I have seen
anywhere. You find the Fleet Farm stores in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Wish we had them here in Colorado. I keep a shopping list for whenever I
visit up there.

But I digress. As you said, the Menards tool is a shopsmith clone made
in Taiwan. Shopsmith parts are interchangeable in my experience. I
haven't noticed them in the Menards stores for a while, don't know if they
are available anymore. I haven't had the cover off mine for a long time
but I think the belt is a standard v-belt and you can get one anywhere.

As a multi-purpose tool, the Menards clone isn't as high quality as a
geniune Shopsmith, as you might expect, but it was only 1/3 the price when
I bought mine. The saw table is small enough to be awkward for a lot of
things, I replaced the poor rip fence with one from Shopsmith, it makes a
good variable speed drill press and horizontal boring machine, I love the
big sanding disk and 6x48 belt sander attachment I got for mine. As a
wood lathe, it is AWFUL. Don't even bother trying it, you'll just be
frustrated. Even the small Jet and Delta lathes are light years ahead of
it.

If I can be of any help, send me an email: ***@nyx.net

-mike paulson, fort collins, co

Post by John Hartmus II
Has anyone heard of a Shopsmith clone bearing the name "Menards P. H. D."?
My Dad jus bought one at an auction and it needs a top belt. Any
suggestions would be appreciated!
Thanks,
John Hartmus II

[Ecnerwal]

Post by Mike Paulson
I have one. Menards is a Home Depot type place with generally lower
prices. There's a chain of them in the upper midwest including Wausa WI
where my parents live, but they have an even better home supply store
there called Fleet Farm - generally outstanding prices, best I have seen
anywhere. You find the Fleet Farm stores in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Wish we had them here in Colorado. I keep a shopping list for whenever I
visit up there.
But I digress. As you said, the Menards tool is a shopsmith clone made
in Taiwan. Shopsmith parts are interchangeable in my experience. I
haven't noticed them in the Menards stores for a while, don't know if they
are available anymore. I haven't had the cover off mine for a long time
but I think the belt is a standard v-belt and you can get one anywhere.

If it's a faithful clone, which it might not be, the upper belt is
either a Gilmer toothed belt (older) or poly-V (like newer car belts -
many small Vs in parallel).

On my genuine older model Shopsmith, I eventually bit the bullet and
upgraded the other components to the newer style upper belt. I'm still
considering getting rid of the Reeves drive on the lower end and putting
in a VS DC motor, which would answer my main answerable complaint about
it as a lathe - too darn fast on the slow setting. That might also make
it a lot quieter. The non-answerable complaint about it as a lathe is
the teeny tiny 5/8" spindle. Despite both of these complaints, I've done
a lot of work with the old thing, and it was a whole lot better than no
lathe at all, which is what I had before Granddad gave it to me circa
1976 (he bought it new in 1954 or 55).