I am building a small strong bench and intend to write a blog, posted here, on the work. I realise that there was a long thread on a bench of an ML7 lathe some months ago but I hope that this will not be out of place.

Brief:

I will soon be taking delivery of a small lathe (length 500mm, depth 300mm, weight 30 Kg) and it needs a bench. This must be strong, rigid, well lit and house all (or nearly all) of the lathe’s tooling

Constraints:

The bench must fit into the existing workshop, which is a “brown field site”, without seriously disrupting its use. Moving the existing lathe and milling machine is unacceptable. The workshop is one half of a double garage. When I bought the house I had a second garage built alongside the existing garage to be used as a workshop. Planning a workshop from nothing is easy. The garage door was blocked by a false wall. A sturdy work bench was built at the other end under a window that looked south at the neighbour’s garage. The pre-war Myford was put on a good bench against the wall dividing the two garages next to a heavy rubber topped steel table up against the false wall. Shelving was put up on the long fourth wall. Simple.

Over the next twenty five years the lathe has been replaced, twice, by Myford S7s on industrial cabinets, the heavy table was given away and replaced by a bench with storage underneath and a milling machine arrived. During these years lots of very valuable things have been acquired which take up all the available horizontal surfaces including the floor. Every so often I try to tidy up the place with some success. Usually I manage to evict the motorcycle bits back into the garage and chuck out real junk like old kitchen things left over from the fitting of a new kitchen a few years ago. Even so a lot of what can only be described as rubbish migrated to one corner of the workshop, between the milling machine and the false wall.

I am going to stop here and continue in a day or two. I attach three pictures of the workshop taken two months ago.

JA

Edited By JA on 23/02/2021 13:08:32

Many thanks for the comments. I will sweep them up as I continue but, Martin, I do like the stool (the best Christmas present I have received from my little sister).

Plan:

The only place I could put the bench was between the milling machine and the false wall. I needed at least 1m by 1m floor space. That is where the rubbish was. And most of it was rubbish. Clearance started before Christmas with two trips to the tip. The horrible band saw was dismantled, the motor kept, and the rest went, thankfully (I hated it). A little was kept, the metal and the LED strip lights. The bench grinder is being moved back to the garage today and the floor will be swept.

The milling machine table moved to the extreme right this gave me a floor space of 1 metre square, cramped (or cosy) but adequate. I thought about putting the back of the bench against the breeze block wall but provision for the milling machine table proved impossible. Putting the side of the bench against the breeze block wall with the operator looking towards the false was the answer. A 500mm wide work top (50mm narrower than a standard kitchen work top) would give just enough room for me and the lab stool between the bench and the milling machine. However I was likely to end up stand or sitting directly in front of the lathe, not a good idea. Therefore access to the adjacent metal store had to be reduced to allow an increase in bench length of 100mm. I could now be at the tail stock end.

The bench will be made of wood. I have used wood for all my other benches since I cannot weld. The instructor at my apprentice training school taught us mechanical engineering apprentices that we could not weld. I have been happy to take his word ever since. All these have used 4” square legs and two layers of 18mm ply for top (as Iain’s posting). The additional frame work had been smaller timber with very simple lap joints. Everything was held together by ordinary interior wood adhesive. Screws were used just for clamping the joints as the glue set. All builds have been against walls just to give support during assembly. Benches have always been painted with cheap household paint, white top and bright colour gloss for the base timbers. I have never had any problems with any of these benches and I do not intend to change my build method. A good bench will remain un-noticed for years while a bad bench will haunt you for the rest of its life.

The next episode will consider the actual design, delivery of wood and contain pictures.

JA

Fusion 360 was used for the solid model. All the components were produced from primative solids, not sketches. The local engineering society seems to have whole heartedly embraced Fusion 360, so much so that we have two Zoom tutorials on it each month (which reminds me, I must do the set homework).

The bench is very much work in progress. This afternoon I almost finished the frame work. The bench, including lighting, should be finished within the week. Then I can get back to the serious stuff, metal not wood.

JA

Work:

A month ago, at the depth of the recent cold snap, I ordered the timber and ply (5m of 70mm x 70mm PAR, 14m of 70mm x 45mm PAR and 2 sheets of good 18mm ply plus a few bits and pieces) from the local depot of a nationwide builders’ merchant. I had concerns about them accepting small orders from persons outside the trade. I need not have worried; the value of the order was way above that for free delivery. A delivery truck turned up two mornings later and I helped the driver put everything in the garage (socially distancing). Looking at my emails later I found that they had emailed when the truck left the depot.

All the timber was left for three days to “cool” down and for the weather to clear. The timber was then cut to length and pre-drilled. I had more fun with the plywood. Years ago I could handle a sheet (8’ x 4&rsquo of 18mm ply. I have great difficulty now. Work on the sheets was complicated by only having a good hand saw. Not quite true, I tried using a jig saw but that only made a mess of things.

After a couple of afternoons I was ready to assemble the bench. The back sheet and the vertical timber were screwed and glued together, moved against the false wall and fixed to the breeze block wall battens.

At this point the lathe was delivered.

After two more afternoons the timber frame work was complete. The top runners and rails were about 1mm proud of the tops of the legs and had been levelled using a spirit level. Everything was glued together except for the front runner and middle vertical (not really a leg). They were temporarily screwed in place so that they could be removed for ease of painting. There was only one error, the location of the front leg on the front runner was wrong.

JA

Painting etc:

Except for the backboard all the plywood was painted with two coats of white paint before fitting (not quite true).

The timber was painted with “what have you” paint. I realised that all my half used tins of paint had long since found a good home down the local tip. I found one unopened tin of bright red paint which gave two coats of paint on the timber and bottom half of the backboard. The access provided by not having the front runner in place proved invaluable during the painting and when fixing the cabinet shelf board in placed. Once the paint had dried the top of the backboard was painted white, two coats. The front runner and the front leg, now vertical, were coated with two coats of paint.

The first sheet of the bench top was glued and screwed to the runners and rails followed by the second sheet with a lot more glue and screws that passed through the first sheet and into the runners and rails. Mitred strips of 18mm x 8mm of PAR timber were glued and nailed to the top to seal the gap between the top and vertical surfaces. The backboard and sealing strips were then given two coats of white paint.

Lighting:

I gave this a lot of thought. After fitting a kitchen cabinet LED strip light, 230V, above my existing lathe I decided to do likewise with the bench. I found that the strip light I had used was not longer available and the available strips were of a lower power and longer. I fitted three 900mm long, 10W, 900 lm TED strips on a frame about 550mm above the bench. The tubes are about 200 mm apart to reduce shadows. I believe it is possible to have too much light so tubes can be switch on/off individually.

I now have a small usable bench.

JA