In a fit of boundless enthusiasm I acquired a quite large and very old British built wood lathe. I believe it had a prior life in a high school shop and that the chap I bought it from was a retired shop teacher.
Space in my garage, which has never seen a car, is at a premium (editors note: we definitely had an unworking car in it briefly in my youth - until towed out for scap). Every square inch is fought over. My wife for her gardening stuff and myself for my fine tools.
I was eventually able to successfully lay claim to about 5 ft by 7 ft in the furthest corner. This is what I had to do to make this space ready to receive my newest toy – I mean tool! The first requirement, power, electricity, juice. Done. Then I looked at the open stud walls and the open joist ceiling (deck above) and realized that with all the sanding dust a wood lathe produces something would have to be done to close this area in. One of the cheapest products PlasticWorks.ca sells is polyethylene sheet, also called arena board. It is a near indestructible sheet that you can nail or screw through and in white which would really brighten up my corner and dust will barely even stick to it. Done.
And while dust will not stick to the arena board it will still float in the air and coat everything in the garage. So to enclose the area around the lathe I hung from the ceiling to the floor heavy duty vinyl, also from PlasticWorks.ca. Stand for a long time on that hard concrete floor? No way! Add some rubber fatigue mats from, you guessed it, PlasticWorks.ca. Pictures follow, but this whole set up is still very much a work in progress. And I will do a separate write up on things I have made using the lathe.
Space in my garage, which has never seen a car, is at a premium (editors note: we definitely had an unworking car in it briefly in my youth - until towed out for scap). Every square inch is fought over. My wife for her gardening stuff and myself for my fine tools.
I was eventually able to successfully lay claim to about 5 ft by 7 ft in the furthest corner. This is what I had to do to make this space ready to receive my newest toy – I mean tool! The first requirement, power, electricity, juice. Done. Then I looked at the open stud walls and the open joist ceiling (deck above) and realized that with all the sanding dust a wood lathe produces something would have to be done to close this area in. One of the cheapest products PlasticWorks.ca sells is polyethylene sheet, also called arena board. It is a near indestructible sheet that you can nail or screw through and in white which would really brighten up my corner and dust will barely even stick to it. Done.
And while dust will not stick to the arena board it will still float in the air and coat everything in the garage. So to enclose the area around the lathe I hung from the ceiling to the floor heavy duty vinyl, also from PlasticWorks.ca. Stand for a long time on that hard concrete floor? No way! Add some rubber fatigue mats from, you guessed it, PlasticWorks.ca. Pictures follow, but this whole set up is still very much a work in progress. And I will do a separate write up on things I have made using the lathe.
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