Making Use Of The Space Below My Logan 850 Lathe

[intjonmiller]

I just got my Logan 850 on Saturday. It took a lot of rearranging and dejunking to make room for it. I'm in a 1950's excuse for a 1-car garage (I realize that's more space than some have, and I'm grateful for it), and I also have a surface/universal grinder and a more-or-less full woodshop. I need to use every cubic inch wisely. I think the area below the lathe is destined to be a tool cabinet for machining-specific tools (lathe gears, mics, calipers, scribes, tooling, toolholders, chucks, small stock, etc. etc.), but before I make something I'm hoping to see how others may have used the space. My searches, both on this site and the internet in general, have not come up with much. Having very little tooling I'm not sure what drawer size and configuration would be beneficial, long-term. I have boxes of drawer glides and I can make wood drawers to whatever size I like.

So, anyone out there using that space well? Any specific recommendations? I'll post a photo of the empty space from my phone in a comment in a moment.

 

[intjonmiller]

 

[Bob Korves]

A quick but more expensive way to go is to buy a couple rolling steel tool cabinets with drawers and then put a wood or steel or whatever shelf across the top of them. Sometimes there is room for three cabinets or shop built cabinets with shelves between them. Don't waste the space! Just make sure to leave room for your toes to fit with feet pointing straight ahead and standing right up against the lathe. Think about the work height you want very carefully. You want the knobs and controls to come easily to hand, especially the ones you will be using the most. A lathe that forces you to bend over is just awful.

 

[intjonmiller]

Thanks Bob. Money is always a factor. I have plenty of scrap, high quality plywood and the drawer glides as I mentioned, so it makes far more sense for me to make than to buy. I don't intend to replace the existing legs (though I've considered it), so I'm just looking at something to go under the pan and between the existing legs, rather than a full bench for this to sit on (as it was designed; the legs were an optional accessory). So the height of the machine is set (plus the amount I'll need to shim it to level it, which should be this evening).

 

[CluelessNewB]

Here is an older thread with some ideas:

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/storage-under-a-bench-lathe-on-legs.38435/#post-329271

 

[intjonmiller]

Of course. I searched for "cabinet" and "toolbox", but didn't think to use the more abstract "storage". And it definitely didn't occur to me to search "legs". Thanks!

 

[francist]

Here's what I ended up doing. I built the bench first with the intention of actually making drawers. Hah! Once I got the machine all nice and tiddly the last thing I wanted to do was fool around making drawers. Then the toolbox came on sale at Home Depot so I decided to try that.

It's a Husky brand and actually pretty nicely made. A good fit for under the bench too, but I didn't like the idea of losing the use of the top tray. So I took the hinged lid off and slung the whole box between two pieces of angle with a couple heavy-duty drawer slides.

It's a bit spooky at first but I'm used to it by now. Plus it's not like I'm in an out of the drawers every two seconds anyway. I've got a machinist box on another bench behind me for stuff like caliper a etc that I reach for all the time.

-frank

 

[wa5cab]

I would add a shelf across the two lower leg braces (like all of the Atlas floor stands have. And then set a cabinet on it similar to what Frank's photos above show. Either bought or built.

 

[intjonmiller]

Absolutely. I could even have a suspended bottom drawer below that, while still keeping it all mounted on those leg braces. From my experience with this lathe when it was in my brother's garage, some dead weight/ballast would be a good idea. I think I'll weld up an angle iron base to drop into (and bolt onto?) those cross braces and build the cabinet around that frame.

 

[wa5cab]

Maintain at least a 4" kick space for two reasons. One is the actual kick space. The other is that sooner or later (Murphy says sooner) you are going to drop something in front of the lathe The odds that anything dropped in front of the lathe will roll or bounce underneath increases as the clearance to look for it decreases.