This lathe was assembled using parts from a Ryobi ML618 mini lathe. I purchased it as a factory refurbished tool at a truckload sale in a mall parking lot for $215 in 2000, but it did come with a factory warranty. It had some serious design limitations that I thought could use improving on. It started out as a 6" swing, 18" between centers machine and ended up a 14" swing, 36" between centers lathe. I have spent less than $300 assembling this lathe. This is most likely due to so much of the construction is made up of scraps and salvaged things. I labeled it "14x36 Precision Benchtop Duplex Bed Woodturning System".


The torque box chassis began life as a 56" long telephone shelf cast off from a remodeling project at my then employer back in 2000. I added an additional layer of scrap 3/4" oak veneered plywood under the shelf to form a 3" wide sliding dovetail way for hold down blocks to slide in. A back of scrap 3/4" oak veneered plywood was glued and screwed to the base and the scrap end pieces were glued and screwed into dados in the base and back. All exposed plywood edges were covered with 1/8" thick oak banding ripped from scraps. A riser made up of two layers of 3/4" plywood for the headstock was installed and wrapped with oak banding. It has recesses inside filled with a lead shot and epoxy mix to add mass and vibration absorption. A 1/4" slot was cut the length of the base for bolts that would lock lathe devices on top to the hold down blocks underneath in the dovetail way. The hold down blocks have 1/4-20 threaded inserts for all of the mounting bolts. The space to the left of the black lines is lacking the dovetail and serves as the "loading"area for the clamp blocks.

The two lower rails are made up of 1/2"x1/2" aluminum angles bonded and screwed to the base with flat head screws that are not countersinked into the angles. The resulting 1"x1/2" channels were filled with #9 lead shot and epoxy was poured into one end of a channel and allowed to flow down and across the cavity. This forced all of the air out from between the shot and allowed the epoxy to grip the exposed screw heads like little dovetails. A 2 1/2" vac port was bored in the right end panel for chip extraction.


The head stock is typical for a mini lathe with a #1 morse taper and a 3/4"x8 tpi threaded shaft. This unit was rated at 2.5 amps. and has an electronic speed control giving speeds ranging from 500 to 2,500 rpm. The motor is 120 VAC digital feedback speed controlled with a cogged belt drive to the main shaft. I modified the electronics to handle 5 amps. and added a cooling fan and filter. The fan is a computer pancake fan mounted in a shop made box that also contains some furnace filter media backed with 1/4" hardware cloth. A 4" diameter hole was cut in the back of the torque box and in the cover of the head stock. The fan box sits between the head stock cover and the torque box back and is gasket sealed between both. The cooling air is pulled from behind the torque box and exhausts from the head stock enclosure around the back end of the motor. The fan has its own power cord separate from the lathe to simplify wiring and possibly any electrical noise between the lathe electronics and the fan. The original rails of the Ryobi lathe were 1" steel tubes and I had read of the vibration issues that Record lathes had with that arrangement. British users often filled the tubes with concrete to add stiffness and mass to help with vibration. Since I was making a larger capacity lathe, I decided to replace the tubular rails with longer 1" solid cold rolled steel bar stock 44" long. A call to a local steel supply business provided the two bars for $60. This also added mass and stiffness.

The original rail support blocks were hollow aluminum die castings and needed to be made higher to align the tail stock center with the head stock center. The blocks were filled with the lead shot/epoxy matrix and bolted to "L" shaped plywood mounts that would sit between the lower bed rails. This arrangement makes the lathe into a gap bed lathe of variable gap width and there are holes in the right end that allow the upper rails to extend out past the end panel.

Two new tool rest banjos were constructed from plywood to utilize the lower rails and under floor clamp pads to augment the original Ryobi banjo that rides the upper rails.

A front drop panel was added to the torque box to serve as a clamp surface for securing the lathe to my workbench. The panel is hinged with a continuous piano hinge to fold for lathe storage and has toggle locks to secure it when in use. The front panel has a notch that fits into the workbench vise and additional clamps are used to secure the unit to the 2x6 frame of the workbench. Since the workbench is bonded to the basement walls and floor, lathe vibration is non-existent.

A steady rest was also constructed from scrap 3/4" oak veneer plywood using roller blade wheels, bearings, 1/4-20 bolts, and threaded inserts.


The die cast aluminum tail stock was also filled with the lead shot/epoxy mix to make it more durable and stable. The original tailstock weighed under a pound and after the shot/epoxy mix addition weighs over six pounds. The finished lathe weighs 120 pounds, but stores on end when not in use on a rolling dolly. The dolly was made from a laminate countertop cutoff and some discarded casters. I can put it up on the workbench and take it down by myself, since it doesn't have to be deadlifted. Thus, I think it is a benchtop tool. So far, the only drawback to this design is that the work area under and around the tool rest position tends to fill up rather than fall to the floor like traditional lathe designs. It usually takes up to 30 minutes if the vac isn't running. The good thing is the waste is fairly concentrated and clearing it takes only seconds with the vac.