Wood lathe build

Here are the finished (except for smoothening castings and painting) head and tailstocks sitting on what will be the bed, the quarter sawn oak is about 2 1/2 X 8" and they are 7 ft long; CR steel strips will be screwed to the top to keep the stocks in alignment, the strips overhang the wood by 1/2" on the inside of the bed for clamping surfaces.

wood lathe bed 002.JPG
 
Looking good, John. I don't know that much about wood lathes, but I have not seen one made the way you are making yours. Still, it looks like it will work just fine. Is this an unconventional design, or just a style I have not seen?
 
Wood lathes with wood beds and iron stocks are common in history; we have parts of several of them at Sturgeon's mill. It makes sense that the use of wood beds, that you can buy the iron parts and make the bed any length that you want or need. Those that I have seen do not have steel way strips on top of the wood, perhaps unnecessary, but I thought of the possibility of maybe wanting to use a router for longnitudical (sp?) details on turnings.
 
How do you envision the "longitudinal" steel strips interacting with the router?
 
I could make a "sled" to run on the rails. I have no need to do so at this time, but who knows?
 
More progress! Made a trip to David Bassing's shop and he jointed four pieces of 2" oak for me for the legs to fit in slots cut on an angle in the bed stringers, and then I cut the curve in them like old machine legs were made, I used my 21" drill in the machine shop and drilled through about 9" of bed and the blocks the separate the bed stringers, then inserted each leg on one side and drilled from the other side to drill the legs, then did the same from the other side; I then made a flat counterbore to cut into the leg to cut the angle to match the through hole for the nuts and washers that hold the bed together and hold the legs on. I then fastened the steel strips on with #14 flat head wood screws.
Next comes the drive arrangement -----

wood lathe progress 001.JPG
 
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