Having for a very long time wanted a lathe, a number of factors over the years have construed to thwart me in this endeavour. The first being time and the latter being money. Now in a position where time is abundant but money is scarce I find myself going back to the idea of self build, or in modern par lance open sourcing.

A couple of years ago I came across mentions of the Gingery Lathe (GL) this then followed research and finding out that there was a set of books to go from nothing to a full workshop of machine tools. This sounded amazing and just what was needed. However at the time my work was all consuming and left little time for backyard casting antics let alone machining and making that level of mess in a second floor flat. So ideas of having my own lathe were put on the back burner until a time came when I would be able to make mess and have some space and time to do that.

Going back through my browser links the other day I came across the GL links which whetted my appetite again to have a go at backyard casting a machine tool making. With all my other Youtubing around table saws and the like I came across another amazing find and just what I was looking for!

Having no experience what’s so ever in metal work apart from the very limited sojourn at school I am also interested to learn these skills and some others to make for a fully rounded home shop bodger (my term) which will include a bit of welding too. This will hopefully start to pan out over the next year as I know these things take time and things have to be learnt. Even now I am looking for evening classes for home engineering and welding.