10 – Attaching the headstock to the bed

You will need to find a way of attaching the headstock firmly to the lathe bed – and in such a way that the drive shaft lines up as close to perfectly parallel as possible (luckily as this is not going to be a metal lathe this is not quite so crucial – still very important though). Two cross bracing pieces (one made of the white metal, the other a doubled up alu sheet) will bolt onto the bed’s rails. Fairly straightforward: drill the holes, and bolt up (I tapped a thread in the bed’s rails, but a bolt through with a nut would probably have been ok too). I needed to make a hole in the front panel for the bed angles to fit through, I did this with small angle grinder and some filing.

After marking out the sizes, I used some careful angle grinding to ‘colour in’ the boxes. As always make sure it is firmly clamped and you defend yourself!

Sparks fly