New lathe stand

[mmayo]

I have a mini lathe from Rikon and aspire to upgrade some day to a midi lathe with forward and reverse. With that in mind in bought a stand that will accommodate the future lathe and handle today's lathe. My time is limited at present so only the rolling cart and some work spaces were fashioned by me. It is nice to NOT lift my lathe from a shelf at shoulder height only to put it on a too high out feed table for my saw. It just rolls to where I want to use it and plug it in. I have locking casters so it stays where I put it. An easy removal of the blocks that keep the lathe in place and a little cutting will allow the base to expand to fit a new lathe.

I managed to drill two blanks today and the correct lathe height for my arms is a treat. I will make some items to keep lathe tools in place when more time permits.

Color me happy with this project. Bring on the pens.

 

[Herb G]

Nice job. It helps when you can actually get to your lathe to use it.
Right now, my bench lathe is buried under a mountain of boxes.

 

[KenV]

Nice!

It voids warranty, but there are instructions to add a double pole double throw switch to midi lathes and get reverse. I looked hard and decided not to do it with the little Jet. If you change directions while it is running fast, bad things can.

 

[shastastan]

Hi Mark. Looks you you know that "Necessity is the mother of invention." I have all of my tools on wheels with the exception of my midi lathe. At my previous shop, I had my full size Jet lathe on wheels, too. The wheels were mounted only on one end. The lathe sat in a frame with a U-bolt at the other end. I made a fulcrum on wheels and when I pushed down slightly on the pole, it raised the end with the U bolt and made the wheels on the end of the frame touch the floor. I would add that this setup is not as easy to use as your 4-wheel setup is. For more stability, I had some sand bags on the frame bottom. I still have that setup on my band saw and drill press though.

 

[TonyW]

Nice!

It voids warranty, but there are instructions to add a double pole double throw switch to midi lathes and get reverse. I looked hard and decided not to do it with the little Jet. If you change directions while it is running fast, bad things can.

Just to reinforce this, when I first started wood turning on a 918/20 metalwork lathe that came with a reversing switch as standard. I used to put it in reverse when sanding bowls where my poor tool control had left poor end grain. The chuck had a title retaining clip to stop it unwinding, until the day I hadn't noticed it was missing. The large engineering chuck duly unwound itself, complete with 9" x 3" bowl blank at 1800 rpm. It first hit the cast iron bed ways, chipping them before running up my ribs. Like the ways, I came off worse, MUCH worse, cracking a couple of them !!!

I have a Nova chuck on my current lathe, with interchangeable threaded inserts, some of which have a grub screw to prevent the chuck unwinding itself, as do the face plates that came with the lathe. I still use as much tail stock support as possible though. If you can, get an insert with a grub screw too, but if not, consider drilling and tapping to fit one. Either way, use tail stock support whoever possible!

TonyW.

PS, my lathe is a Woodfast / Record Power / Rikon too.

 

[mmayo]

Bad things can happen with the lathe

That sounds simple awful. Perhaps just turning around the blank may be ok after all.

I had a drill chuck come loose one time and that was more exiting than motorcycle riding. Here is a photo from last weekend when we rapidly covered five Sierra passes in two days. If you were there in a car, I was the blur that politely passed you and then disappeared around a curve.

Early on some wood shot back from the table saw and hit me in the gut. No Bueno! I try to me much more careful to avoid such events.

Thank you for the valuable advice.