Well I decided to repower the lathe to get rid of the variable speed V-belt, as it was causing some vibrations. I ended up going with a VFD very similar to the one on the mill, and setting up 3 switches to select among 8 speeds of the motor, combined with direct/back gear I have 16 speeds easily selectable. It runs much smoother now.

I have a project going now for a buddy, he has me building a Wakeboard tower for his 20' jet boat. So that necessitated buying a bottle for my Tig welder, and building a cooler for the new water cooled Flex-loc torch. Commercial tig coolers run anywhere from about $450-800. I think I have around $100 in mine including coolant($68), fittings, and PC power supply($15) to run the pump and fan(free) on the radiator(recycled drinking fountain evaporator)(free). Everything should be getting a nice workout tomorrow, as we hope to have the tower pretty well finished on my second day off in about 6 weeks.