Lathe Bed

Surly sent the cartoon along for me. Since the weather has been so cold, that's pretty much what I've been lately - a vegan zombie. I did make it out today and put the bed extension on the wood lathe. It fit right up, came with the necessary hardware to bolt it together, it has adjusting setscrews so the top surface can be leveled evenly, and to top it all off, the end is drilled and tapped so another extension could be mounted up to it. In theory, I could keep adding extensions until the lathe bed was as long as the shop wall. Not likely, but I could if I wanted to. 

Next thing I need is to make a rack for the tools and the grinding set-up for sharpening them. Harbor Freight has a cheapie 8" grinder on sale for $49.99. It says it's 3/4 horse. As little as I would probably use it, it should be good enough. Get myself a Wolverine grinding fixture after that and I'll be set. Might be a good idea to hold off on that until I start getting paychecks again, however. I've got a 25% off coupon that I could use when the grinder is no longer on sale at the end of the month. That would actually save me $5.00 more and bring it down to $45.00. That right there is the reason you pay attention in math class, my friends.

I bought one of these Wolverine fixtures for the Woodshop at the high school and it works like a charm. Set the length of the arm to obtain the desired angle on the gouge and that's all there is too it. There's a couple other attachments you can get, one of which works real well for "fingernail" grinds on small gouges. After I get the wood lathe all set up ready to go, I'll make a tool post and a couple of tools to do metal spinning on my old South Bend metal lathe. Always wanted to try that.