A sturdy stand with storage
A little while back I had a post about a new lathe, and I mentioned I would be making a stand for that new lathe. Well, here we are.
I did quite a bit of looking around for design ideas for this stand. I wanted something sturdy, but I also wanted to include some storage (drawers), because space is at a premium in my shop. On top of that, I wanted to be able to build with wood I had on-hand, because I'm cheap. In the end, I borrowed from several designs, and created a design best suited to my needs and supplies.
The sides (legs) are two layers of 3/4" plywood (actually, one layer of plywood and one layer of MDF, because that's what I had!). The top is two layers of 5/8" plywood with a top layer of 3/4" Maple plywood for good looks. I trimmed around the edges for appearance as well.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this build is the central support for the drawers. I didn't want to drill through the top down into the board that would support the drawer hinges in the middle. Instead, I dovetailed the edge of the board, and I created a matching dovetail groove/dado in the bottom of the top. That probably sounds really confusing, but you can see it in the illustration below.
It ended up working really well in the end. Once the frame was together, it was a matter of building and installing drawers. The drawer faces are made of Catalpa wood, and I had some leftover drawer pulls and knobs I could use.
It has been working incredibly well, both in sturdiness and storage. Even though it would look quite beautiful, I decided not to put finish on it purely because of laziness. I had other projects in queue, and I didn't want to take the time. Nonetheless, it turned out quite nice, and I'm looking forward to turning on it for years to come.
A final note: I intentionally did not bolt the lathe down through the top, because I didn't want holes in the top. If I ever get a different lathe, the holes wouldn't match. Instead, the lathe is sitting on some industrial double-sided tape! It feels as solid as a rock.
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