When building The F-Bomb Garage, I bought some new tools in which to fill it.  One of those hunks of iron delight was a Powermatic PM3520b wood lathe with a bed extension and lots of accessories.  It was a replacement for the three lathes of varying sizes I had sold before the original garage was torn down. I didn’t have the room or desire to store equipment that I wanted to upgrade anyway.  The new lathe had been boxed up for 4 months waiting for me to clear some room, unpack boxes, and for the power to be hooked up.

I spent all of Saturday afternoon, the weekend after power was finally turned on,  putting together my sweet lathe. The thing is a beast, so I had to start out with the bed upside down and install the legs.  I carefully rolled it on its side after all the leg bolts were torqued down and girded up my loins for some heavy lifting.  Now, what I should of done was hook a block and tackle to the rafters and pulled it up right, but I am hard-headed, so I put on wrist straps and dead-lifted the bed onto a 2′ wood block.  Then, after psyching myself up a little, I lifted it the rest of the way vertical.  If my sweet wife would have caught me, she would have said dirty words and i would have been in serious – grounded form the shop – trouble.

Anyway, after the base was upright, the head-stock/motor, banjo (tool rest holder), and tail-stock went on.  I installed the 18″ bed extension while I was at it and made sure to check everything over one more time.

It is 710lbs of mustard-yellow sexy.