I really like useing the lathe when it is tilted forward towards me. Everything is much more convenient. A machinist once told me: "In the shop time is everything".
All the wood parts here were clamped together while the glue
dried using no screws or nails. The small base allows the lathe
to be tucked away in a minimum of space although the tailstock
end sticks out and might be a little susceptable to damage. Also
the tilting base tends to shield the leadscrew and gear rack from
accumulation of chips besides making the reach to the motor crank
and the view a little more convenient. A wood plug in the end of
the pipe gives a little cushion.
A slight disadvantage of using long carriage bolts that run
completely through the 5/8" plywood and one 2x4 to hold the
lathe is that when the wood shrinks (in the dry air in the
wintertime) the screws may loosen up a bit and allow the lathe to
loosen. I just retighten the screws but one can find a way to use
shorter screws that don't go through so much wood and therefore
do not suffer from the shrinkage problem. Counter boring the
mounting holes to allow the bolt heads to be closer to the lathe
base is one possibility. Another possibility is to make a metal
plate to mount to the lathe and then mount this plate on the wood
base by using woodscrews.
While the wood is still clean sand it and give it three coats of
polyurethane varnish. Sanding lightly between coats eliminates
some of the roughness. It will look nice and be easy to clean for
a long time.
Rather than mounting the motor directly to the main base, one can
perhaps find an easier way to mount it to another 5/8" thick
piece of plywood so that it can be moved in a sliding fashion to
tighten the belt to the lathe. This plywood can then be attached
to the top 2x4 using wood screws. Finding a way to make a
moveable attachment of the motor to the 5/8" plywood may be
a challenge depending upon the way the motor looks. If no better
way can be found, almost any motor can be mounted by carving a
block of wood to fit a large surface on the motor and then gluing
them together with a strong glue. I have used polyurethane glue (kind
of a new product) and it seems to hold nicely to metallic
surfaces. It also foams up to fill voids in the carving. Watch
out for it foaming over onto places you do not want it to go
though. There are alot of good glues available these days,
polyurethane, epoxy, Weldbond, etc. Epoxy can glue metal to metal
since it does not take air or moisture to cure and the WeldBond
appears to stay just slightly flexible enough to be shock
resistant.
Once you have the block of wood attached to the motor, you have
many options of making the motor moveable on the plywood piece. I
have simply squared off the block of wood and attached 1/4"x1"
aluminum strips to the block with wood screws and more
polyurethane glue. One should make sure the aluminum strips are
parallel before the glue dries.
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