Stand for Rikon Midi Lathe? (Plus "Hi")

[Erich Weidner]

Sale today at my local Woodcraft on Rikon. I finally pulled the trigger on a Rikon Midi VS lathe. I didn't buy the stand.
I had planned on storing it somewhere and putting it on my benchtop for turning. Getting it out of the truck bed and into the garage put a serious doubt in my mind (as I had to drag the box).
Trying to get it out of the box by myself put the final nail in that coffin. This thing is heavy. It's going to have to live somewhere that doesn't involve me lifting it. :)

I've been searching here and reading posts about shop made lathe stands.
Would folk suggest building one vs. just buying the Rikon stand? https://www.rikontools.com/product/70-920

I have a small shop (1/2 of a two car garage), floors pace is at a premium, so all my power tools save the air compressor are on mobile bases.

My preference would be to have something mobile (wheels). Would this be too unstable?

At $200 (and 15% off of that with the sale), I could get going quickly with another trip to woodcraft tomorrow. But it has no wheels, so would have to adapt something.
Or is building something better? I'd like to minimize footprint, unless I also ended up getting the grinder mounted to the same table somehow. Honestly, it never occurred to me to make a wooden lathe stand but googling found the following video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMJS-oRKCtY

This woodturner made a stand with storage, and a swing out grinder stand (I have a regular low speed bench grinder, however). That is how I ended up digging through posts on the subject here at the creek.

Suggestions? Thoughts?

PS. I've never turned in my life. So this is a new chapter for me. Right now I'm interested in turning chair and furniture legs.
PPS. Hello everyone. I expect I'll be spending time in the Turner's Forum going forward.

[John K Jordan]

Erich,

Some people add casters to existing stands. Some get them with a foot lever to jack the wheels down for moving and up for use - this doesn't compromise the stability nor add to the height.

Do you weld or know someone who does? I haven't made a lathe stand yet but a friend had one made for a midi lathe. It looks like the one I use with one of my Jet mini lathes. Nice thing about that is you can make it whatever height you want.

Some people simply mount the lathe on a wooden workbench. Two potential things to think about - one is height and another is sufficient clearance in the front for your legs and feet. Working at a lathe without this clearance is annoying and limits your motion. Some people build a wooden stand; important to make it sturdy enough to stand up to vibration.

If new to turning, one excellent thing to do is to find a local woodturning club. You can watch youtube videos all day but there is nothing better than help in person. Clubs often have a mentoring program and at least have experienced turners to provide help. A lot of clubs are closed now but here's hope that that situation won't be forever.

As for videos on youtube, note that many are simply horrible, made by people with little experience or those with little expertise, sometimes showing unsafe techniques. AAW, the American Association of Woodturners, maintains a list of woodturning videos that have been reviewed for quality and safety. The AAW also has an abundance of resources for both beginning and experienced turners - well worth the cost of joining (which is less than one good turning tool).

When I started woodturning I learned a lot from two books: Turning Wood by Richard Raffan and Fundamentals of Woodturning by Mike Darlow. I prefer the depth of instruction a book can contain compared to a video.

JKJ

[Erich Weidner]

John,

No, don't weld. To many hobbies as it is. :)
I ended up purchasing the Rikon stand. Everything es assembled. Lathe works. Now I have to learn how to use it.

I've never taken a woodworking class, all book/video/forum/self taught. I actually spent most of last evening reading about woodturning injuries, looking at how not to be on that list. I'm sure a class would be good, but then one never knows the instructor quality (and I detest wearing a mask any longer than I absolutely must). I definitely take all self published material (youtube included) with a grain of salt and caution, as there is no publisher/editor vetting the thing.

That being said, though originally all my learning was from books, I am enjoying video instruction. I bought Getting Started in Woodturning (by AAW, it is a book), and will check out the videos you mentioned.
I've watched the Lost Art Press Peter Galbert video on chairmaking several times, I bought it on a whim, and that is what ultimately hooked me into trying turning. So... here I go.

[Erich Weidner]

Erich,

As for videos on youtube, note that many are simply horrible, made by people with little experience or those with little expertise, sometimes showing unsafe techniques. AAW, the American Association of Woodturners, maintains a list of woodturning videos that have been reviewed for quality and safety. The AAW also has an abundance of resources for both beginning and experienced turners - well worth the cost of joining (which is less than one good turning tool).


I did join. However do you have a link to the videos you mentioned? I'm not having much luck finding them.

[John K Jordan]

I did join. However do you have a link to the videos you mentioned? I'm not having much luck finding them.

Their system used to be a bit difficult to get to but at least it gave a simple list of videos you could scroll through. It was awkward before but I haven't tried to use it for a while - now it seems a worse. I ran into lots of broken links. I can not find the simple list of videos. It almost seems you need to know what you're looking for before you can find it. Maybe you'll have better luck.

- Log in to AAW
- Click Explore (they seem to have combined the video and articles).
- Once logged in, the Explore button gives me this page with a search form: https://www.woodturner.org/AAW/Article-Search.aspx
- If you know or can guess the author, title, or the type of video you want to find, it's no problem - fill in the form and you will get a narrow list with good explanation of each option.

If you want to simply browse through what's available and view one that seems interesting, good luck. If you figure it out, let me know. Maybe someone else will know. Maybe I simply overlooked something, like an "Browse All Videos" option.

I think they REALLY need to get a web team with knowledge and abilities in user interfaces. It should be that hard for a user to figure out how to browse the video list. (Sorry to sound critical, but when I wrote software for a living that was one of my specialties so I may be a little picky.)



JKJ

[Erich Weidner]

Their system used to be a bit difficult to get to but at least it gave a simple list of videos you could scroll through.

I think they REALLY need to get a web team with knowledge and abilities in user interfaces. It should be that hard for a user to figure out how to browse the video list. (Sorry to sound critical, but when I wrote software for a living that was one of my specialties so I may be a little picky.)

I still work in tech (but aside from scripting for some automation, I'm a hardware guy), and I'll agree that a lot of woodworking websites look like a web page from the 90's. (And, given several I'm thinking of, that is probably true).

A CMS like Wordpress makes formatting and layout a cakewalk compared to learning HTML or even an WYSISYG HTML editor. But then one has to deal with some administrative overhead (though wordpress is pretty minimal).
Anyway, I digress... :)