George said:

"Greg G." wrote in message
I am wondering if anyone has tried building a wooden midi-lathe
stand such as this? I own a Jet midi-lathe (the popular 10" swing
model) with bed extension, and considering how... err... lightweight
the Jet accessory stand is, I would like to try this instead.

Use sheet goods rather than construction lumber. Glued and properly
supported, your stand will have none of the problems that flex against
fasteners can cause, nor will differential wood movement creep and crack the
cross-grain glue joints. It's rigidity you're looking for, and your stand
is designed for load bearing. You also get the benefit of good weight on
3/4 chipboard construction.

Well, I figured that with all the triangulation, it would be fairly
rigid. The crossgrain joints are why the dowels and bolts were
included. But they are definitely the weak points of the design.

But for the life of me, I can't imagine how you would construct
anything of merit out of the sorry stuff they call chipboard around
here. And a glued joint with chipboard? It would peel apart easily -
even with a dado. Plywood would be more reasonable...

Besides, having recently re-roofed our house, I *really* hate the
sight of chipboard. ;-)

I had considered using large "bonding plates" made of plywood or metal
to re-enforce the joints - rather than dowels and screws.

Bring the end trapezoids on your sheet goods out 1/2 larger (or more) than
the throw of the lathe - 15" for your mini - to provide a broad footprint to
resist out-of-balance conditions. No need to splay them in the long
dimension, as there is no longitudinal force to counter.

My design has no longitudinal splay, and a leg spacing of 26"
(18 degrees) - which might be insufficient if you meant 30" total, but
I have another "table" built for a spindle sander which has the same
height and leg angle, so I ran the lathe on it temporarily and it
seemed sturdy enough. Shop space and toe clearance are serious
considerations around here...

I wanted the top not much wider than the lathe bed, so that it
wouldn't interfere with my body in those deep hollowing operations and
such. And I'm a lefty as well...

My shop is small, so rather than build a storage center for sandbags, I used
my stand to store other things. It's against the wall because I don't turn
from the rear, and the wall now supports tools and deflects shavings.
Drawers under the bed are full of lathe stuff, and the shelf underneath is
loaded with my tailed hand tools. The shelf itself is actually a 4" deep
box which can accept sandbags, while still providing an even shelf surface.

Yes, I ALWAYS put storage on anything that takes up floor space,
'cause my "shop" is fairly small as well, and shares space with winter
plant storage, materials staging, etc. Although my picture omitted
this fact for clarity, my plan also included a long sloping shelf
under the "bed" (with back) to store turning tools while in use, so
that they don't roll off onto the floor. A shelf on the head-end but
lower than the "bed" level was to store chuck accessories and misc.
tools.

Thanks for the input, and do you have a photo of such a stand built of
chipboard? And is chipboard the same as OSB (they are both considered
the same thing around here). Or do you mean particle board, that
flaky stuff they build Wal-Mart furniture out of? I don't really have
much respect or confidence in that stuff either... ;-)


Thanks,
Greg


Greg G.