New Lathe Day (For A New Guy )

[TattooedTurner]

Thanks TT . Congrats on the lathe . I came pretty close to ordering the stand but decided to try and build one , its not the greatest but it is solid and doesn't take up a lot of space , and I built it in about 4 hours so I had no wait time . I got the cabinet at Lowes and now thinking in retrospect they had one a bit larger that I should have gotten . But I have room in this one for all the bushings I'll ever need and my most used parts and kits so it will work fine . Its nice to have your tools and parts organized so you don't spend as much time looking for them as using them Now if I could just find an auto cleaning work bench I'd be all set :biggrin:

I lucked out, they had one at the store an hour away so I didn't have to wait. It has feet that adjust for an unlevel surface, but even bolted tightly together it's not nearly as stable as my other lathe sitting on a bench. It's not bad, but I have a feeling yours is better.

 

[adirondak5]

I lucked out, they had one at the store an hour away so I didn't have to wait. It has feet that adjust for an unlevel surface, but even bolted tightly together it's not nearly as stable as my other lathe sitting on a bench. It's not bad, but I have a feeling yours is better.

I wouldn't say my home made stand is better , but I can say its rock solid and very stable . It was kind of fun to build it and I can't complain about the cost savings . But sometimes as was almost the case with me , you just want to get done and get set up . When I needed a stand for my CNC I could have built one for probably half of what I spent on buying a steel stand , but it was so much easier to just bolt together the steel stand and be done with it in a few hours rather than run to Home Despot and take a day or 2 or 3 building it .

 

[adirondak5]

Made a sanding disc for the lathe today , just glued up plywood screwd onto a faceplate . I'll use stickyback sandpaper on it . I've been using pen mills to trim/square up my blanks and they have been working out ok but I am not thrilled with that system . I've got one of Rick Herrell's offset jigs on the way , seems like it should work well for my needs .

 

[adirondak5]

I epoxied a .062" piece of garolite onto my sanding disc face for the sticky back sand paper and also got the jig from Rick Herrell , works great .