"mac davis" wrote in message
...
Good idea as usual, Ken!
your lathe stand looks nicer than any of the furniture in my house ;(

not counting trips to the thrift store, how much do you think that it cost to
build it?


mac

Thanks, Mac

I'm assuming you are asking how much to build the semi-mobile lathe stand. My
only out of pocket cost for the stand was for the lifting levelers from Rockler.
The oak was stock I had in my wood stash. I have a friend who is a commercial
building contractor who had just finished a health spa which required a lot of
glued up and milled oak. He had some left over and asked if I wanted some.
Never one to turn down free wood, but I couldn't believe the 8/4 and 4/4 oak he
dropped off.

I don't know what it would cost to build the tool post holder. The old
machinist vise would be expensive, as would the computer tape drive hubs. I had
the threaded rod and most of the hardware on hand -- probably spent about $10 at
the hardware store for cap bolts, the 10mm bolt, and some 1/2" nuts. Most of
the rest was from stuff on hand, including the UHMW strips on the bottom of the
slide. All the wood was scrap stuff.

This was a really fun project -- I sort of designed it on the fly. The problem
with making something like this as you go is that you really never know if it
will all work until you are done. The cross slide came together easily, but I
spent several hours getting the feed screw aligned properly.

Ken Vaughn