Lazy Susan (not the wife)

[k7mdo]

OK, this isn't too technical but I think it has turned out so well that someone in the forums might benefit from the construction of one of these.

A recently acquired R-390A made me re-think my physical strength so I decided to build a rotary table that would facilitate the process of assembly and dissassembly.  Quite often a boat anchor only needs to turn a few degrees to access a screw or a solder joint and rather than lift and groan I decided to try a "lazy Susan" approach.

I built a low height square workbench and then found on Amazon a lazy Susan bearing set rated at 1,000 lbs.  Drilled it to the top of the workbench and then from one of the home improvement centers purchased a 2' by 2' piece of 3/4" plywood for the top.  Turned the 2'x2' into a circle on the bandsaw for the rotating top.  Then, because I feared the potential of "off center" loading I added four perimeter 1" square pads of delrin the same thickness as the bearing set "just in case". 

It works like a dream, it will hold most any reasonable boat anchor and the ability to rotate it at will turns out to be a huge improvement over the "armstrong" method. 

[KA0HCP]

Super idea, and a great looking shack!

[kv5i]

I bought a six inch ball bearing corner cabinet ring at Home Depot for $5. I cut four 1/2 inches pieces of 12x12 plywood out of scrap and glued them together. I screwed the ring to them and cut about a 15" piece of scrap 2x6 and screwed it to the other side of the ring. Holds my 110 lb Collins 32v's very well. Maybe it would work for others. I think the ring was rated at 500lb, but I could be wrong.
good luck, Ed

[KA8WTK]

Very neat idea!

[MikeKE0ZUinkcmo]

A couple years ago, I finally got tired of wrestling things around on the bench, and as you can see it really isn't deep enough anyway, so



I came up with a very similar solution, using a lazy susan bearing ring.   It has worked well but when you're troubleshooting the leads get to be fairly long.



I'm currently making a second, deeper bench, so I can finally separate the radios and test equipment.  I think I'll take just take the lazy susan part of the little table and make it so I can just set it on the new bench anywhere.   I think that will be a better solution and, I can also recoup a little floor space in the process.

Having the ability to do wood working can really compliment the radio hobby at times.