I'm working through the book Lathework: a complete course, and it is suggested that benchtop lathes really need to be bolted to something sturdy in order to do accurate work, because they lack the required rigidity. Bolting to a plywood workbench is not enough, because to make the lathe turn parallel you need to adjust the mounting to take the twist out of the ways, which means the stand needs to be broadly as strong as the lathe bed otherwise you will twist the stand instead of the bed.
