My Carving Bench

I'm new to carving and it didn't take long to realize my traditional benches weren't going to work for my carving. They are the wrong height and the wrong scale for small carving projects. I thought back to a carved I had seen at a festival a few years ago who used a stump as a carving bench.

I still wanted mobility though, something a far cry better than dragging a stump around. I built a X using half lap joints in 4x4s and added casters. I carved a matching X in the stump I had of the right size. Assembly was quick with some long deck screws.

I quickly found I need some clamping abilities, so I added a hole for a hold down and a couple hold-down clamps. It has worked out well. Also, if I ever want to take my woodworking to outdoor festivals, it is plenty portable.

Hanging my Lathe

My two car garage is full of both my shop and other stuff, so space is always at a premium. I got a rather large lathe from my father (from what I can tell it was sold under about a dozen different names including Harbor Freight). I love the lathe, but finding a place for it can be a challenge since it is very long.

When looking up specs on the lathe to order accessories one day, I noticed it was only 50lbs. Cool. I found a hundred pound bike lift and put my plan in motion. I was going to make my lathe lift out of the way.

I knew mounting the pulleys was going to be a huge challenge. My garage shop has textured ceilings that hide the stud lines and make a stud finder useless. I knew I didn't want to be guessing on studs. Luckily I have a FlirOne IR camera. It shows the studs right through the layers and allows me to line things up. It is still a two person job, with one on the latter marking and one running the camera.

My ceiling is 24" on center so I knew I was going to need something to mount too. I grabbed a 2x10, mounted the pulleys on the lathe and the plate to match. To mount the plate to the studs I found some structural screws (a new fangled alternative to lag bolts) and got them placed into the 2/10 on 24" inch centers. These things are rated so I could hang ten of the lathes from it without moving the structural screws.

To get the plate in place, we placed 6 long screws in the studs at a distance wider than the 2x10. We then wrapped one side with wire. When it came time to mount, we lifted the 2x10 in between the screws and wrapped the wire around the screw to hold the 2x10 in place in all 3 places. This allowed me to slide the 2x10 back and forth to line the structural screws through the 2x10 up to the screws marking the studs.

I pretty much spent an entire battery putting in the 6 structural screws. They are long and tough to drive, but it gave me confidence that this 2x10 was solid. One of the screws hit something hard (I suspect a metal plate in the ceiling) so I backed that stud up with a couple more long screw through the 2x10.

We fed the rope through. With the bike mount rated for 100lbs and the lathe being half that, I figured the rope would give us no issues. It is a hard lift, but the rope held well. The lopside weight distribution of the lathe resulted in it hanging crooked, but I have plenty of space to the ceiling, so it won't bother me.

For now, I have the rope (with brake engaged) tied off on my bench. This isn't ideal, since it is in the way when the bench is in use. I will be rerarranging things so I can tie it off on my wood cart out of the way.

The lathe has been hanging for several weeks now with no sign of trouble. Nothing has moved.

Personally, my one lesson learned was that I mounted the pulleys in probably the opposite direction I planned, which makes tying off the rope a bit more of a pain. It is nice to get my bench back again.