It sounds like Tom Plamann's lathe:

Finished project -
http://www.plamann.com/sys-tmpl/lath...athe&UID=10021

The whole story -
http://www.plamann.com/sys-tmpl/lathe/index.nhtml

That's the one! It sounds like my memory was slightly exagerated, but
that's still one big lathe. : )

steve