I have I hope come up with a suitable solution for the chip bin:
Now guys a couple of things yes the bin is warped from the heat of welding - its a bin so it don't matter. Yes i would have preferred that it wasn't warped but i have never worked with sheet metal before and i didn't know that it would warp that easy.
I have used slide rails to attach it to the underside of the coolant try so it slides in and out beautifully and comes to a stop right under the coolant try. The rails have catches on the sides so that you can take the bin right out of the machine to empty it, ill bolt on a rear handle to assist with this as well.
Re; coolant extraction, i have simply put a drain hole in the corner and tig'd some mesh which holds a piece of scotch bright in there the idea being that this will separate the bulk of the chips and other solids from the coolant, the coolant tank will also have a finer screen to get out any of the fines that make it through.
just above the 3 jaw you can see the edge of the coolant tank, i decided to keep the tank i had but extended it to firstly increase the amount of fluid available (i plan on pouring the stuff on) and second i ant never going back there for anything so i may as well use the space up with something.
Colour choice (NZ spelling), i decided to go with an off white inspired by JHChoppers build
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,13365.0.html as well as Dave Decaussins little lathe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UubzocrQ1ew&feature=player_embedded#! found his link through
www.cnccookbook.com - your the man Bob!
Obviously its still early days but i absolutely love the colour, im thinking some dark blue pin stripes and logos will really set the thing off.
You may also notice I have the bottom and an internal wall (you can't see it) in the cabinet as well, I'm thinking a set of 4 or 5 draws on the size for the chucks and tooling.
I had the main power switch on my mill towards the back and boy is it a pain to have to reach back there to shut things off this time i got things up close and smack bang in the center if the thing its much better.
I have only used the lathe a few times but I feel like it should have a lot more toque than it does for such a big motor. My tooling is only the standard crappy 12mm stuff (1/2" for the metric impaired) but I am only able to take .5mm cuts before i feel like i will stall the machine i want to be taking 5mm not .5mm passes.