Lathe- & workbench with drawers for free...

[DIYSwede]

Portable ritual altar for a "Walk-in-Closet Machinist", made entirely from dumpster findings at work
including an old, laminate make-up table, its excellent, rigid extrusions cut down to
750 mm width, 500 mm working depth @ a comfy 930 mm height.
This contraption has of course some flex to it, but with my:
(http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/t...he-stand-73194)
on its 18 mm blockboard top the lathe will be straight and aligned regardless of the floor's eventual flatness or stability.



Two 20 mm plywood drop-leaves adding 400 mm extra width and 30 kg of extra load capacity each, with black vinyl for good contrast.
The "Naval Aesthetics" is purely coincidental, as the fitted oak trim stands a few mm proud of the surface,
to keep swarf, nuts or oil from hitting the deck.
Atomized Al powder/Polyurethane-covered (ordinary floor lacquer leftovers) MDF board sides and backs
slides into the extrusion's slots for rigidity, where the rear 700 mm vertical section
(tool rack, shelves & lights-to-be) just could be lifted up and away.

Two found turd-brown IKEA "Helmer" drawer units doesn't really match the semi-gloss "EZ-Kleen" Al/ silver structure,
or the grey linoleum top - but color matching isn't really my thing (either).
LED strips under the top will provide light for rummaging thru the drawers.
The space between the drawer units will be filled with 50 mm ID paper rolls for < 450 mm long rod stock, the wide slot under the top will take the surface plate, a DIYed high-amp PSU for the different tooling peripherals, and has also a rear hole in the back board for cables.

The independently lockable castors has a SWL of 100 kg apiece, and the grey synthetic wheels doesn't stain the floor like black rubber does.
Weigh-in empty as shown at 25 kg, some 20 hrs of work went into it and a cost of NIL (any currency)
makes this sturdy enough to even carry the mini lathe + its stand and materials stock
w/o buckling or complaints from the "Next of kin":
-My hard-core "zero bucks"-selling point is seldom opposed for these my "improvements to our household".

[Altair]

Thanks DIYSwede! We've added your Lathe Workbench to our Storage and Organization category,
as well as to your builder page: DIYSwede's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Lathe Workbench by DIYSwede

tags: lathe, workbench

[NeiljohnUK]

Neat job, I design research machinery stands occasionally, aluminium extrusion is very useful stuff, the 'system' manufacturers stand alone CAD makes my life much easier to draw it up for quoting, but you need to understand just whats possible and be able to visualise before 'drawing' what you want/need, something too few young 'engineers' seem to have these days.

[DIYSwede]

@ NeiljohnUK:
-Thanks for your encouraging remarks, even though I didn't do any CAD or even a drawing beforehand!

These extrusions aren't by themselves really that structurally sound for the job,
as the Make-up table (liberated from a TV production company estate) was initially rather flimsy:
The castors are bolted thru reinforced corner steel gussets, providing sturdy bases for the horizontal beams,
which are locked by smallish anchor bolts with mere eccentrics for holding power.
I figure they're really for making store counters and the like, not carrying 300 lbs of metal.

Then the tight-fitting lacquered MDF bords provide both the cross-bracing and load-bearing with the top horizontals.
Tabletop rests on top horizontals and verticals, piano hinged drop-leaves supported to side MDFs.
Drawer cabinets sits on bottom blockboard supported by the corner gussets and lower horisontals' flanges.
I wouldn't have tried doing it freehand, I needed the wood shop as well as the metal shop at work to get everything square and tight.
Most time-consuming was the cutting and fitting of extrusions and panels into the 5-sided rigid box.