PM-1130V chip tray installation

[zippyslug31]

Quick, possibly dumb question, but I just received my 1130 yesterday and am scratching my head on how the chip tray works with this lathe. The unit is around 600 lbs but there's no way this sheet metal chip tray can support the lathe if I slip it under the lathe. To further clarify, the "bed" of the tray is suspended by the sides of the tray. I tried flipping it upside down to see if the tray's bed can lay on my workbench, but nothing doing... it's just floating in space regardless of how it's flipped.

I'm reluctant to even try laying the lathe on top of the tray out of fear it will deform the tray.
I feel like either the unit was supposed to come with spacers/supports that can be used under the tray to support the weight of the lathe, but I don't see anything like this in the kit.

I'm tempted to just use the lathe itself to whip up some short (about 1") tube supports that I can set under the tray. I imagine getting this lathe, tray, and supports is going to be a real PITA.

Am I missing something?

 

[matthewsx]

Hello and welcome.

What are you using for a stand?

The stand should support the lathe, with the tray between the two as shown on PM's website. If you didn't buy the stand your workbench will need to support it.

Pictures will help....

John

 

[zippyslug31]

Thanks for the quick reply Matt.
No, I didn't buy the stand, but made a very sturdy (4x4) wood bench, with an MDF worksurface. The bench is a tank and the lathe is already sitting on it; supporting the weight no problem.

Based on your note regarding the factory stand, it does indeed sound like I'm going to need some type of spacers due to the design of the tray... not saying it's flawed by any stretch, but simply that it's not meant to be used on a flat surface. Does this sound accurate?

 

[zippyslug31]

Quickie picture. The tray is just sitting on the benchtop (lathe not yet in it's final location). You can see that the bed of the tray is about 1/2" floating above the tabletop. Hopefully this makes sense.

 

[zippyslug31]

Other than mounting the lathe on its OE stand, I'm not sure how this "bench top" lathe can be used with the factory chip tray. For anybody else stuck on this, if it helps here's what I did...

Since my bench top is MDF, I figured a little more to act as "shims" wasn't going to hurt so I found some that was just the right thickness (around 5/8") to take up the space under the tray. After the install this left the edges of the tray about 1/8" above the tabletop. Perfect!
I cut a few pieces that I had on-hand so that the lathe's two mounting points were fully supported by these shims. I laid these out very carefully and transferred the tray's holes so the whole thing could be thru bolted.

Here's the shims in their final locations on the bench:

With the shims located over the workbench's holes, the chip tray was laid on top, followed by lifting the lathe once more to position it on the tray, centering it over the mounting holes:

It took a little fiddling to line up the holes in the bench, shims, tray, and lathe... but it finally went together.

Given the 4x4 frame of this tank of a workbench, I needed about 7 1/8" bolts (used 1/2" all-thread cut to size) to tie the frame, tabletop, shims, and the mounting frame of the lathe itself. This thing isn't going anywhere now and my hope is the wood will dampen chatter as some on this site have mentioned.


Now time to clean it up and make some chips!

 

[pontiac428]

You done good with it! Your shop is full of wood tools, but I won't hold it against you. Much.

Welcome to the forum!

 

[tweinke]

I just went out to my shop and looked at the chip tray that came with mine, it's the same as yours and would need a spacer underneath. Looks like they never intended the chip tray to sit on a bench. I got the stand from QMT so the edges of the chip tray do not touch anything. I wouldn't get the stands again if I had it to do over. They are not heavy enough on the top or bottom to not be flexy ( technical term ) I will be sourcing a nice thick chunk of plate to put on top and reinforcing the bottom flanges of the bases to try to get the stands more stable.

 

[zippyslug31]

You done good with it! Your shop is full of wood tools, but I won't hold it against you. Much.

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for the encouragement.
Yeah, I do a lot more with wood than I do with metal. I'm more of a generalist and far from a 'fine woodworker'. This is pretty evident by the looks of my workbench!

 

[zippyslug31]

I just went out to my shop and looked at the chip tray that came with mine, it's the same as yours and would need a spacer underneath. Looks like they never intended the chip tray to sit on a bench. I got the stand from QMT so the edges of the chip tray do not touch anything. I wouldn't get the stands again if I had it to do over. They are not heavy enough on the top or bottom to not be flexy ( technical term ) I will be sourcing a nice thick chunk of plate to put on top and reinforcing the bottom flanges of the bases to try to get the stands more stable.

Interesting. Yeah, I debated on getting the stand but it didn't look tall enough for me to work comfortably, and something about it didn't look quite as sturdy as the bench I built.