Lathe Stand

A few years ago my boss offered me a wood lathe that he was going to throw out. He had bought a (much) better lathe and just wanted this one gone. I had a lot of other woodworking tools but no lathe so I was glad to have it. It came mounted on a stand made from a couple of 2X10’s that just wasn’t sturdy enough for any real lathe work so it sat in my basement for a few years while I thought about a design for a lathe stand – not high on the priority list.

Earlier this year the company I work for started renovating. Over the course of a month of dumpster-diving I found : 1. a pair of heavy cast-iron legs with leveling feet 2. sections of a large bi-fold solid core door 16” X 84” X 2” 3. lots of pieces of oak veneer plywood – already stained and finished

So this is the end result. I built a frame to hold a set of drawers under the solid-core door. It is recessed about 1/2” into the door to act more or less like a torsion box to keep it from sagging or warping while suspended between the two legs. The frame and drawer fronts were all made from the recycled oak veneer plywood. Reclaimed oak trim from a previous salvage was cut to 3/4” and milled on my table saw to finish the edges of the plywood frame.

The only purchased parts were a 2’X4’ piece of 1/2” MDF and 3 sets of drawer slides for the drawers. Note that the drawers holding lathe tools have open bottoms. This is so that they can be left open while working and any chips will fall right through to the floor. With the solid-core door and two cast-iron legs this thing is heavy – no vibration at all while turning.

What timing! I just finished this last month and, when I saw the announcement for LJ’s Woodworking Awards, thought this project was just perfect for “One Man’s Junk”!

-- "Find out what you cannot do and then go do it!"