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My Dad has owned his Shopsmith(TM) for about twice as long as I've been alive, so that's what I started turning on. He waited until I was fourteen before letting me start - I guess he wanted to be sure that I was strong, tall, coordinated and smart enough... The first thing I ever turned was a candlestick for Mom, and then a bowl for my Grandpa (who lives in Ireland). After Dad saw that I could handle the work, he decided to get me my own lathe. It's a Delta(TM) MidiLathe with a bed extension and I used it for a few months clamped down to the workbench in the shop. Then Dad decided that he needed the bench space, so he and I designed and built this medium density fiberboard (MDF) workstation for my lathe, tools and equipment. It's quite heavy (two full sheets of 3/4" MDF plus the weight of the lathe) and it sits on feet that absorb vibrations. I have a light, a built-in garbage can, holders for all the chisels and a moving backrest that catches all the shavings behind the lathe. We're still working on dust control. More on that later. |
| MDF comes in 49" x 97" sheets. We started out by having the guys at Home Depot cut each of our two sheets into two pieces, because they have a panel saw. One piece was 49" x 36-5/8" (the blade took 1/8"), and the other was 49" x 60-1/4". Then we asked them to rip the two larger pieces so we ended up with four pieces that were about 2ft x 5ft. We glued three of these together to make the thick top, cut a hole in the middle for the garbage can, and then used a router and a guide to make two 1/2" deep grooves for the legs (see photo at right, and click on it to see a larger version). The grooves are offset a little so the legs will sit under the lathe. |
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Next, we glued a couple of square legs into the grooves, making sure they were square to the table (see photo and click on it for a bigger version. Then we attached 5" wide legs to the outsides of the big wide legs, by just face gluing and clamping them in place. We built a couple of hardwood L-shaped tracks for a metal garbage can (the handles slide along them) and attached these to the bottom of the table with glue and screws. |
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The next step was to brace the legs. We did this with a couple of triangles, attaching them to the legs with glue and screws, and attaching them to the underside of the top with a couple of 2x2 cleats. Then we glued and screwed a 1x6 to the outside of the triangles, just to make it stronger. We went to Home Depot and got four pads for the feet. They're plastic and they say that they reduce vibration. They only cost about $3. |
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Dad drilled a bunch of holes in the left end of the tabletop for all my chisels. I kind of stole his, and the lathe came with some small ones, too. I have one huge gouge for roughing, six medium chisels for most of what I do, and five small ones for details. We drilled a few 1/2" holes in the back of the top and they're for an old office light that I use to shine right on my work. |
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I wanted some way to stop dust and chips from falling off the back of the table, so we made a real simple L-shaped wall that I can slide around and move behind the place I'm working. It catches lots of waste and then I can just slide it over the hole for the garbage can and my bench is pretty much cleaned up. The photo shows it in two places. Click for a bigger version. The completed bench is below. We're trying to rig up Dad's Shopsmith dust collector to it. Any ideas? If you do, can you send us an e-mail, please? Thanks, |
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