July started off slowly but built up towards the end of the month. I was starting to become a little despondant about turning. I had all the equipment but just never seemed to get the time to actually use any of it. I decided to give it another go and try and find time again...

As I have got quite a lot done this month I have decided to split this months journal entry in two. The first half will be about improvements I made to my workshop and the second half about the pieces I turned.

The first improvement I want to tell you about will hopefully be of use to anyone who owns a Record Power lathe (certainly a CL3 or CL4). The pulley housing of the lathe is held in place by a small bolt with an allen key head. This, apparently, is needed to conform to British Standards but is a complete pain in the rear for anyone who actually wants to use the lathe. The problem is that you need to get into the pulley housing fairly frequently and, while it is certainly dangerous, only a complete idiot would put anything in there while the lathe is moving (or even on).

This leads many people to just leave the bolt out as the cover seems to protect the pulley housing just as well without it. I have also seen other solutions to the problem such as turning up a nob for the exisitng bolt. My concern was that without the bolt the housing isn't sealed as tighly and dust would get into the pulleys. I would also like the cover bolted to at least slow down anyone that does think it's a good idea to put their fingers in there.

By a funny piece of luck I happened to have a bolt with wings going spare that also fitted the hole and was Record Power yellow.

The bolt came of this rubbish quick clamp that broke while I was clamping something a while back. The new bolt is a little looser than the original but the thread pitch is a perfect match (the original bolt as a little tight for my liking).

At the end of the month I found myself with a weekend at home (which has been getting rare). I decided that working on the floor was no longer fun and that I needed a bench of some kind to work on. When we moved in to our current house a friend of mums gave us an old dining table that has been serving as a work bench in the garage - it was time to move it in to the real workshop. First things first though I needed to tidy the place up a bit. I hadn't swept up the wood shavings for an age so they went first. Then I gathered together all the spare lathe and sharpening system bits and bobs and put them in one box. Very pleased with myself I went and got the table.

While I was on a roll I decided to add shalves to the lathe stand. This is a common addition to the Record Power stand and one that I would recommend everyone perform. I don't know if the stand was designed to have shelves added to it but it is easily strong enough (at least at 36 inches) and once loaded up with wood vibrations are greatly reduced. The shot below shows the top shelf being fitted and having stops glued to it. I happened to have a piece of 9mm 5-ply hanging around that was almost exactly the right size for the job - just a little long. After much screwing it up and trying again I finally managed to make it fit (the problem was I wanted it to be recessed into the legs but no matter how I tried I couldn't quite get the angle to fit it).

Once the stops were glued on I added spacers at the head end to account for the fact that head end bar is a little thinner (it slides into the tail end bar). The spacers I used were 8mm thick made from two bits of 4mm 3-ply glued together. I realize that this looks like I have foudn about the most dificult way possible to perform this task but that shelf is such a tight fit that if the spacers and stops had been put on before fitting it wouldn't have goen in!

The finished top shelf. As you can see I've already found out a piece of ply for the bottom shelf.

The ply I intended to use for the bottom shelf was, annoyingly, a little too short so I would need to add a section to one end. The first job though was to add the spacers to stop the shelf sliding about while I'm turning.

Next up is Fraggle helping me with the joining plate that will hold the two bits of shelf together...

...And here it is in all it's glory. I then stuck on 8mm spacers again to account for the smaller bars.

A shot of the man himself with the shelves in place. I have made the bottom shelf over hang the front by about 4cm and the back by 10 to 15cm. So far this seems to be working out fine.

A final shot showing the lathe loaded up with wood.