@RyanGi thanks for the thorough response. Sorry I sorta fell out of touch on the emails we were exchanging back in the Fall, my home workshop has been in a unusable state this whole time with remodeling, so it reached a point at which the only thing thinking about it did was cause me impatience. Hope you’re doing well!
Here’s my current train of thought- although the more I think the more I reopen old questions- so this might be a little messy. I’ve actually written out a blog post on most of this stuff but I’ve been having some technical issues with posting it.
I share my home workshop with my father in my parents’ basement. The shop isn’t particularly big, so everything is best kept mobile so it can be moved out of the way when it’s not the tool in use. My father disapproved of getting the lathe, and any time it’s been in his way it leads to me getting yelled at, so it’s critical I come up with a solution that minimizes inconvenience. While I could see building a bigger cart and permamently leaving the bed extension on if I had unlimited space, I don’t, so it’s a question of keeping the footprint compact.
Moreover, in all honesty, I didn’t even buy this lathe for woodturning, crazy as it sounds. I bought it because my speargun project research led me to multiple examples where a DIY’d jig, run on a lathe, would be a better choice than other tools. The current plan is basically to treat this lathe like a mini-ShopSmith: using it as a versatile motor with modular mounting options to build a variety of jigs that will be powered by it.
With that said- I’ve always been curious about woodturning so now that I have a lathe, I will eventually try some woodturning projects on it. Despite turning’s low priority, I’ve already had the forethought for much of what you’re describing with “how will the stand lend itself to turning projects” and the obvious question that raises, as you’ve shown, is pretty obviously “how will I sharpen my turning tools and where will that sharpening system go?”
I’m debating between an 8” bench grinder w/CBN wheels and a Tormek T-8. Outside of just sharpening gouges, the bench grinder won’t see use in my shop, whereas the T-8 and its many jigs will allow me to sharpen all our chisels, kitchen knives, etc too. Moreover, I saw some concerns throughout my research to the effect of “using a bench grinder right next to your lathe will throw metal dust onto your lathe that will serve as abrasive when moving the tailstock and put more wear on the bed” curious if you’ve been worried given how close your bench grinder is to your lathe? Anyways, the lower price and faster sharpening have been enough I haven’t fully made up my mind, but Im leaning tormek.
Early in my research on lathe stand solutions, I saw April Wilkerson’s design where the wet grinder (she has a wen tormek clone) is mounted on a stand-mixer type appliance lift so it can be hoisted out when needed: I’m a bit skeptical about a grinder on a moving shelf like this, but given a Tormek weighs only about 60% of those appliance lift’s max supported weight, and is only moving at about 100RPM, it seems like a non-issue?
I just bought the plans she sells for this stand tonight (was only $9.99) and even if I use her design, I will be largely modifying it for some of my own preferences. But Im trying to figure out if it makes more sense for whatever add-on I make for the bed extension to touch the floor, or to be supported by the existing vertical beams and just hang further out.
