The Home Machinist!

Kaoma, just got a new in-a-box lathe. That started me thinking. (Uh-oh!)

I have a 9 inch cabinet drive school lathe. It has the two box pilars under the chip pan, and some casters that add little to mobility but bring the short lathe to a good height. For some time I have been considering replacing the feet and casters with iron wheels instead of rubber, that dont roll, and have been wondering if the center spine between the end risers could be moved back to house a 3-4 drawer add on box, like a Crapsman, under the chip pan for working tools and measuring tools. The goal would be to get the box under the pan far enough to shield it from oils and swarf, and have tools at the ready just under the edge.

Anybody got some suggestions? The wheels are going to be changed as the channels they mount on are not flat, so the casters dont follow. I have some aluminum heavy square tube to mount the lathe legs to, and add the casters to that. I will use iron casters for least rolling resistance. I know that it will hurt the twist and alignment accuracy, but my situation dictates some movement.

Here is what I did. I now have all the room I need.

The picture was taken before I put fronts on the drawers and made a proper chip pan.

The two end cabinets support the lathe. The center cabinet is separate and can be moved.

First, looks nice on the wood work, even part done. What is the wood? Yellow pine? Or something a bit more exotic?

I gotta get a pic up, but I only hae the center to work with, and only if I move a centered sheet between the motor house under the head, and the box under the tail. I havent put a tape on it, so you may have an answer of custom built drawers.

I had garbage picked a rack with small metal drawers - it was too good to pass up but I had no idea where to mount it and what to put into it. Then a couple of months later I saw an image on another list where someone mounted drawers under their lathe and suddenly I knew where to mount my drawer rack. The image is a bit poor since the purpose of it was to show my garage layout to someone. http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll27 ... 140023.jpg
I welded a couple of pieces of 1 inch square tubing (scrap that I had on hand) to my Clausing 5914 and mounted the rack to that. I have filled up the rack with lathe related tooling, parts and material (drops) for future parts. A very productive use of dead space.

Ya, thats the idea. I dont have that much width tho having a school lathe. I am debating how to go about this. Steel VS wood. When I get some measurements I'll know better.

The drawers are made from some scrap pecan. The cabinets are 3/4" oak plywood. The knobs were turned on the metal lathe from some aluminum hex bar. The slides are ball bearing K&V.

Thanks! I cant really see the hex at my resolution. I like the striping of the pecan. It is not scrap if its useful! I often use Oak from shipping skids. About half of the pallets found aroudn here are made with it. Some is pretty nice stuff.