Building a Lathe Stand

[Fred LeBail]

for my 160 General. When I bought it it did not have the original stand with it. I built a stand of wood and would like to upgrade to a Steel one.
If any of you have made a custom steel stand I would appreciate seeing pics of it.Some description would also be welcome.
Thanks in advance.

[Bill Grumbine]

Hi Fred

I do not have any pictures specifically of my stand, although there are a number of pictures of my lathe on my personal site. I started with the width of the ways, i.e. where the stand would need to bolt to the ways, and built an A frame from there. The second critical dimension was the height to the center, which is going to be different for all of us. So, make it as wide as it needs to be at the ways, as high as it needs to be for center, and the rest should take care of itself.

I ended up with a leg splay at the bottom of about 34", and that has proven to be very stable for me. One other thing I did was weld up the cross rails so that they are flat. This makes a great place to rest a foot during those long sessions at the lathe.

Good luck with it, and if I can be of any more help, I would be glad to try.

Bill

[Charlie Stein]

Hey Bill,
How about a link to your home page I would like to see what you have built for your laeth.
Just Charlie

[Ken Salisbury]

Hey Bill,
How about a link to your home page I would like to see what you have built for your laeth.
Just Charlie

Charlie,

Simply left click Bill's name on his post and a dropdown menu will appear with his home page as an option. (One of the nice features of our software :)


http://www.oldrebelworkshop.com/misc/moderator.gif

[Bill Grumbine]

Hi Charlie

I see Ken has already pointed you in the right direction. There is one small glitch right now though. Over the weekend SWMBO was putting some stuff on my personal site for an artist's group that we belong to, and it appears to have messed up the entry page. My site is coming up as not found. However, if you go to http://www.enter.net/~ultradad/bwelcome it will take you in through an alternate route, and you can navigate around my site that way. Hopefully it will be restored to its usual appearance by the end of today.

Bill

[Fred LeBail]

Bill, thanks for the directions.Your stand is straight forward, I will have to incorperate a motor stand on mine. I have one question. Does the splay on the legs at the headstock end give you any trouble,or do you just get used to it?

[Bill Grumbine]

Hi Fred

I never really noticed the legs getting in the way, but then again I have a well developed turning muscle. :D In all seriousness though, there have been many times I have leaned against the lathe in various positions while working, and I cannot think of any time when the legs got in the way.

One thing I did not mention, and I do not know if it is apparent in any of the pictures, but three legs are of fixed length, and the fourth is adjustable. We did that by finding a smaller piece of tubing that would slide freely inside the tubing for the leg, and then welding two large nuts onto one corner of the leg. Two large bolts go through and can be tightened up to position it wherever it needs to be. If you would like some pictures of that, let me know.

Good luck with your stand.

Bill