Weighting my lathe down.

[BearTricks]

I've put a wooden floor down in my workshop to make it easier on the knees. The floorboards are reinforced under the lathe but it's bouncing about more than I would like since the floor is flexible.

My lathe stand is one of these jobbies:

It was built by the guy who sold me the lathe. I'm planning on building a better one at some point.

Until then I need to weigh it down. Could I put a sheet of MDF under it, bolt the stand to the MDF and then whack a load of sand and tins of paint on the the MDF or will it just vibrate everything across the floor with it? I actually reinforced the cross stretcher yesterday, and put a thick pine shelf across it but it's just threatening to buckle and snap when I put anything reasonably heavy on it.

What's the best way to make one of these heavier?

(that's not my lathe by the way, I took that from Google for illustration purposes)





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[moby]

hard to suggest a solution without more info. a few heavy duty angle brackets and some big screws might do it if you can get them into the joists (i assume) of the wooden floor. if not then span the floor with some 3x2 the whole length of the lathe and put plenty of screws in it and then screw the legs of the stand to that (or use bolts)

the bigger/ more irregular the piece of wood the more bounce you will produce.

 

[AJB Temple]

My guess is that part of your problem is the legs of the lathe are rather thin and flimsy. Double up the timber on the legs. Bolt the legs firmly to the floor with metal brackets. It makes no difference how much weight you apply to the frame if the floor itself is vibrating, but hopefully that will not be the case.

Personally I would not be wild about the plastic switch on the left front leg either. I would replace that, at a minimum, with one n a proper metal box with metal face plate, or a machine safety switch.

 

[adidat]

Beef up the frame a bit and strap some bags if sand to it. That should make it better

Adidat

 

[Stiggy]

This is my unfinished bench.

It has a 3x2 support screwed onto my shed securely plus the three legs have right angle brackets fixing them to the floor.

I will be using the shelf to hold my stock of wood giving it extra weight, plus forming a base shelf attached to the legs right at the bottom where I will be keeping my heavy tools and big lumps of wood. Doors will be added when I get round to it.

 

[BearTricks]

I fixed the vibration by moving the lathe in to a position where it is slightly more stable. I've also put a couple of 5ltr tins of paint and some bags of cement on the shelf but I didn't want to push it. I have a huge section of sycamore trunk that would be perfect but would probably take the shelf in half.

The 12" slab of ash I was turning was a problem. I turned it down to the size that I wanted and found woodworm damage in one half of it that seems to be contributing pretty significantly to the imbalance.

I was worried the wooden floor was a mistake but I'm not getting any more or less vibration than the concrete.

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[graduate_owner]

Perhaps if you were to beef up the frame by cladding it with ply it might help by preventing diagonal flexing? It might also strengthen the shelf so you could add more weight.

K