Lowell for the money starting out this is a good lathe; the other thing I forgot to mention was I built a ply box into the bottom of the frame of my lathe filled it w/ 500 lbs of sand bags or you can bolt it to the floor or both; I was then able to turn large logs after balancing them between centers. You'll want to keep the belt clean and check it on a regular basis, I still have the original belt on mine coming up on 4 years old. I thought I had a better photo of the base but you can see some of it here in this photo.