It is possible to accomodate those changes, however. There's only one major problem with the wooden bench and that is the movement as temperature and humidity changes. I've seen a lot of lathes mounted on wooden benches and the type of construction that you describe is a good way to make one (I've made several large aquarium stands in exactly that manner). The in-cabinet configurations (heavy 10) are much nicer but I could never figure out a practical way to change mine, unhappily. Having once owned an Atlas lathe with similar drive, I appreciate that it is an awkward situation. You decide, you can change things later if need be, (years go by, trust me.) I have a 6 incher on an oak desk, with a secretary chair for sit down work and the drawers for storage. Still needs a sheet metal cover to prevent oil soaks. Whatcha wanna do? A sheet of good quality cabinet plywood will set you back about 40 bucks, glued and screwed together it can give you 16 inches of dense reasonably solid top about 2 1/4 inches thick, or 24 inches at 1 1/2 inches thick. Wood doesnt have bell like qualities, steel is expensive. Or roaming the net for a set of cast legs, that are getting harder to find now, and possibly a pair of heavy angles or C-channel for a spine, that may vibrate like a xylophone in use. So that leaves a home built Square tube frame for our chip pan or heavier top, and some way of taking the twist and level up to our machines needs. Cheap legs provided by most chinee and other manufacturers are wiggly out of the box. Most of us must settle for a 3/16 pan with the edges turned up for a chip and oil pan on some sort of 4x4 homemade wood bench. This is not for everybody to get a 500lb plate to start with, although it has its merits for finer work. Some small manufactureres use the priciple of a heavy 1" plate or similar for the base bolted to the lathe, that has the benefit of being heat stable, vibration damping and less flex, all in one. You need to get your "bench' machine up on a bench.Ĭonsider this: A lathe of any size will be subject to temperature shifts from its environment. The 'chip pan' is a tinfoil baking sheet from the dollar store.IMHO the table is only as good as the top up. Change gears and some other stuff are in there but it is a pain to drag it out to get it open. The chest on the right is only temporary. The shelf above simply sits on top of two of the PVC tubes. I cut up some cheap 4 inch PVC pipe to make the metal storage area on the lower shelf. It has 6 sliding trays with all sorts of tooling. I bought it via an auction for the contents and had planned to dispose of the box. Oh, and I cut down the legs by about 2 inches to get to a comfortable working height.īy stroke of fortune, the black cabinet on the left slide right in. The cleats are down the centre line of the lathe bed and underneath the headstock, counter-shaft and motor. The top is braced from underneath with glued and screwed hardwood cleats. I got one used on Kijiji for $50.Įven though it is just stamped steel, the frame is quite strong and stable. It was exactly the dimensions I wanted: 48 wide by 24 deep. A Canadian retailer sold a tonne of these inexpensive handyman workbenches. I'd love to see what you guys have done for your machines or whatever input you may have.
Atlas lathe stand plus#
Cost of the two cabinets is ~$500 plus the steel for bracing and sheet metal for pan.
I think this would most resemble the original cabinet. My next thought was to purchase two Harbor Freight "End Cabinets" to put under each foot and then fabricate a "bridge" between the two that sits several inches below the top and put a chip pan in between. Problem is there is very little clearance between the handwheel and the table surface.
Initially I thought to just purchase a Harbor Freight 44" tool box, remove the casters to get it to an appropriate height for this machine (34-35").
Atlas lathe stand full#
My Kennedy stack is pretty full at this point and I have quite a bit of tooling for the Emco so I'm looking for options for the stand that can incorporate storage. Unfortunately the stand it come on is very much not nice and needs to be replaced. I recently picked up a very nice Emco V10P.