From The Workshop: Mini Lathe Series Part I

The What?

After doing lots of questionable "turning" on the drill press and hand drill, I finally decided this was the year I would finally add a lathe to my list of expensive tools I never use workshop. A lathe has been on my wishlist for a long time, and in my research, I settled on a Sherline 17" mini lathe. Given the option, I would love a 1000 lb piece of classic American steel (or old German or Swiss steel), but I don't have a place for a full sized lathe. A 7x20 or similar sized chinese lathe would be much cheaper, but I felt like once I exceeded the capabilities of the Sherline, I would probably have outgrown the 7" lathe at the same time.

I bought the metric version in 17" with the DRO package. While it was in shipping, I planned out an enclosure for the lathe, and then I decided I needed a stand for the enclosure. I was going to keep it in the garage, but thinking about the 80% humidity during the winter, and 90F temps in the summer, it just didn't seem like a good place for my new toy. So now, I need to find a corner in the basement to put the lathe, lathe enclosure, and lathe stand.

The enclosure will be made of 2020 aluminium extrusion, while the stand will be made in the same style as the drill press stand I made last year. Come to think about it, I built that in Feburary... Clearly the winter stir crazy leads to buying new tools.

I'll be documenting my experience setting up and working with my new lathe in a series here on the blog.

On a related note, I am well aware that I have a ton of Part Is, but no follow up part IIs. I'll try to remedy that in the next few months and they will be backdated as appropriate. I blame the videos I need to edit for the posts, and the fact that I need to learn how to use a new editor to do it.