Another Midi-lathe homemade Extension

[Tom Hartranft]

Last summer, Wallly Wenzel posted a homemade midi-lathe he made from hardwood. I was tempted, but didn't do one. Then last week Keith Westfall posted a homemade midi-lathe extension that he built using hardwood. Well, that pushed me past my tipping point, and I'm pleased to say that I now have my own custom-made hardwood midi-lathe extension.

I don't have much space in my workshop and I haven't had the urge to turn 40" posts (yet), so the commercial ~25" extension for my Delta 46-460 is too long plus the added cost to buy one. An extra 12" of lathe extension gives me the length needed to drill for long tool handles with room to spare, which was my current motivation as I am now turning some custom lathe handles with extra length.

So, my extension is 12" long and tailored to mount to the end of my homemade lathe stand. The rails are 8/4 hard maple from a past project; the vertical and horizontal supports are 6/4 oak from past project. I opted to clamp and drill all of the joints for 1/4 - 20 hex head bolts ... did this with the wooden extension pieces clamped and aligned with the lathe rails. Thought about gluing the joints, but decided that the bolts will enable me to tweak alignment if/when my wood wears or racks or whatever. I used 8mm threaded bolts at the tail stock end to mount that horizontal support to the lathe female threads provided for Delta's commercial lathe extension.

The extension is solid and aligns nicely with my lathe rails ... the tailstock travels onto it and back again and locks pretty well on it without any tinkering -- good.

My thanks to Wally and Keith for their posts that showed me the way.

So, here are the pics.


Tom

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[Roger Chandler]

That is nice work! I think JK would be proud of your nice clean workshop!

[Joe Watson]

Ahhh... thats great.
Something else nice about bed extensions are getting the tail-stock out of the way with out the need of removing it and putting it on the shelf or floor.

[Keith Westfall]

Tom,

Well done - looks like it will do just nice.

Amazing what a little extra length (on the lathe guys, on the lathe!) does for the midi. Makes it just so much easier to do things, and getting the tail stock farther back out of the way is a big advantage.

Thanks for posting Tom.