Newbie questions

That's BEYOND spindle and foot turning.

Barry

Hi Barry,

That should work fine. But Jet does offer a mini stand extender for that lathe. Here is a link to it. You will have to scroll almost to the bottom of the page to see it.

Best wishes, Dave

David Peebles Lyons, Ohio Revolutions Woodturning

Barry... IMHO, if you can get a refund for the legs, go for it.. you can build a rolling stand with storage for less than the price of the legs..

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Ahh....

Thanks!

Barry

I kind of like the legs. I've built other stands, for stuff like thickness planers, and my own router table, so the building isn't the issue. The wide base and long, skinny top berth nicely into an odd shaped area in my shop, between my bicycles hanging from one wheel.

I had an extra mobile base laying around, so I devised an easy way for the lathe stand to slip on and off of the base. This makes the unit easily movable and easy to set directly on the floor.

Until someone pointed me to the stand extender, I was going to make a

3-4" thick shelf, the same dimensions as the lathe base. with an MDF top and bottom. I figured I could fill it with sand, if necessary. I'm kind of tall, so I still have to decide if the extra height is better.

Thanks! Barry

yeah, I'm about 6' 2", so I know what you mean.. COming from a Shopsmith, I thought that higher was better.. the SS is like waist high.. I put the lathe on a portable tool stand and it's actually too high now, I feel like it's almost chest level..lol

I'm mentally developing a simple table for it that would suspend the lathe on cross beams for the feet, allowing chips to fall through to a bin below, and incorporating a chisel rack and fold up "chip deflectors" the height of the lathe in the back and far side..

My only worry so far about the mini is the location of the motor.. seems to collect sawdust and chips on top of the motor, between the rails... sort of worried about overheating the lil' bugger and I seem to be constantly clearing chips from above and below the motor..

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Correct lathe height, according to what I've read or heard, is elbow height for the particular operator. 3/4 MDF sounds insufficient to hold up a lathe withour vibration, even if it cantilevers the base legs by only a few inches. You could go with "2" by construction lumber (1

5/8"), tho. I made a whole stand of 2x12 and 2x6 with 3/4 ply sides, works well and very stable.

Don't need the frame if you glue and fasten the sheet goods. Especially if you use shelves and/or dividers to reinforce the shell. Think of it as chipboard monocoque, or "unibody."

Don't need the cantilever if your square cabinet has a larger footprint than the lathe, and you can gain some good storage as well.

Trouble with construction lumber is folks tend to assemble with fasteners, which work loose, because full rigid glued tolerances are not met, and the lumber cycles with RH.

3/4" MDF is what I made my stand out of, and the vibration is almost non-existant, even without bolting my midi lathe down. The only caveat here is that the MDF is a full cabinet, and not just one sheet laid over a stand. The cabinet is all MDF, with no construction lumber involved- the top, bottom and shelf are set into dadoes on the sides, and the back is set into dadoes in the sides and bottom. Works nice, and only required a single 8' x 4' sheet (handy for us folks on a budget!) Aut inveniam viam aut faciam