This is the start of a walnut cabinet I’m making, it’s also the first time (not including test pieces) that I’ve attempted dovetails with my Leigh jig.

I had a 1hp electric motor I’m using on my new lathe but the guy I got it from used crappy black spray paint to hide the rust it must have had. I think it looked kind of crappy on my nice new lathe stand and freshly painted lathe so I took it apart, sanded it and had it painted.

I haven’t had an issue resawing boards in the past but I sliced this 8 foot long walnut board from 2 inches thick into two one inch thick boards to book match them into a wider piece. When I got to the end they sort of sprang apart and bowed away from each other. They were straight and flat before but afterwards the internal stress was released. Once I cut them down into 24″ pieces I’m sure the bowing will be minimized but I’ll have to rejoint the faces and plane the opposite face to get them flat to work with.

I’ve finished building a new stand for my lathe, the old one was metal, loud and vibrated too much.
My Beaver 3400 lathe now sits on a solid ash stand with 3″ thick legs and has a mdf top to help absorb vibration.
I’ve rigged up my 1750 rpm 1/2hp motor with an in-between jackshaft to slow the whole thing down to as low as 230 rpm.
From lathe headstock to jackshaft I’m using a set of 5-4-3-2 step pulleys, from jackshaft to motor I’m using a 6-5-4 step pulley and 2″ pulley. In the future I’ll likely swap out the motor pulley for a matching 6-5-4 to take advantage of all speeds.
The motor is gravity tensioned and is bolted to a swinging hinge. The jackshaft lifts on a set of hinges but I clamp it down on shims which works just fine for now.

I love this thing !

I just had my first sharpening session tonight with my waterstones, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Thank God for the Veritas honing guide.