[dangerranger]

I have been wanting a lathe that I can extend the bed out enough to turn a 48" stick. I found one on a local sale site for $50. The lathe itself was in good condition but the stand it was on was made of pressed wood and was in the process of returning to sawdust. So I went and got it.
While I was making a new stand, I went ahead and extended the bed. That made the over all length a little over 5'.. Previously I had measured the space available at 5'.[ notice I said a little over 5'.].
You guessed it, Does not fit in the space available.
So I started moving things around in the garage. I cut off about a foot from an existing bench, and cornered another. I am making a new stand for the Band Saw. And moved my welders to the other bay.
At this point I thought I had it . Every thing had a place that I could handle long boards in. But then I went to plug it all in. Not one piece of equipment was within cord length of an outlet!
It was at this point my Wife made her first appearance. She said "It looks good Honey, but how much did you say that lathe cost?" I'm still running new outlets, and moving the welder plugs.
And last but not least the new lathe will not accept any of the attachments from the old lathe. [ the new one does not accept any tapered centers]. So the old one has to stay too. DR

 

[dww2]

Just keep saying to yourself: "It'll be worth it in the end."

Out of curiosity, did you make or buy a steady rest of some sort? Things of that length can get a bit wobbly between centers from what I've seen.

 

[CV3]

That is the way many of my easy projects go. Get in to what I thought would be a quick simple job and It take twice as long and twice the coast. And my wife has that same attitude.
I do not think I have ever seen anyone turn a 48 inch stick. I have turned some 32 inch cane shank. And bought a steady rest to turn them.

 

[valky307]

I was a project manager for remodeling retail stores for 35 years. Needless to say my work life was always complicated and stressful. When I retired I promised myself to keep things simple and stress free and that included my hobbies. I have a band saw and a belt sander.
Anything else might start to complicate things.

 

[dangerranger]

Just keep saying to yourself: "It'll be worth it in the end."

Out of curiosity, did you make or buy a steady rest of some sort? Things of that length can get a bit wobbly between centers from what I've seen.

I have a very light steady rest, But I will be making a heavy version.
The new one uses inline skate wheels., and a good firm base.
I remember in Jr High someone was making a long spindle that kept coming out egg shaped. Finally the instructor saw what he was doing and introduced the steady rest. After that it was pretty easy.
The wiring is coming along. I added a sub panel. This let me setarate the tools on separate circuits. That way who ever buys this place next can run several tools at once. With just me working in there I don't see that happening, but you never know. DR

 

[Kelly]

This would be me every time I add a machine. So it went with the long bed jointer, the bigger, second bandsaw, the flatbed sander, a lathe (then four). . . . Then I decided to learn copper plating, then welding. . . .

In the end, it's fun to know we can stuff as much into our little shops as some of the big kids have. If only we could figure out how to do that with more room.


All that aside, I made a walking stick using my little 14" Jet. I wanted to see if I could do the mortise and tenon thing. It worked REALLY well, but made sin look pretty (I took a lot of turning license).

The funny thing was, I used really green pine, knowing it was going to do strange things, and it did - the top tried to give itself a slight crook, which actually added to its, uh, charm.