YALB (Yet Another Lathe Bench)...

Hit two little snags and may need to postpone for a day.

Yesterday, I banged/cut my knuckle while dragging the bench off the dollies and woke up this AM covered in blood so... one of my trusty family members took pity and put a couple stitches to keep me from leaking all over the place.

Then... before I moved the lathe, I removed the electric access panel and looked at the diagram and things aren't making sense according to the measured voltage readings so, I gotta noodle on this a bit.

Going to let the finger rest for a day lest I rip the stitches -and that'll give me time to figure-out the wiring.

darkzero said:
Looking forward to it. :drink:
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Hey Shawn, what kind of bench do you have now?

Those kinds of vibs come & go. VFD is good at chasing them away too.

I had the stock benches and I looked them over long and hard and could not figure-out a solid way of beefing them up that pleased my personal design goals. One fellow here jokingly suggested filling the pedastals with concrete -and I do believe that would probably be the best solution.

BTW: I'm not saying the stock benches were bad because they served me well so no offense is directed to those who use them...

Ray


shawn said:
That looks great. I am going to add some re-enforcement to my bench, at a specific DOC and feed rate I start to develop a harmonic vibration.

Shawn
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Ray, the bench looks real good. One suggestion, when you work with heavy materials use some good HD gloves. This is especially true when you have those office hands :man:
 
Thanks... In this case, I don't think the gloves would have spared me the cut... I was pushing on the bench to slide it under the lathe, the hand slipped and slammed into the sharp edge of the cast iron base and there was a good burr right there. I'm really picky about my hands as they're destroyed from a lifetime of boxing and martial arts. It was fun then but I'm paying dearly for it now. It takes 10 minutes for my fingers to start working when I wake up on cold days.:angry: They pretty much stay in fist mode all by themselves.


fastback said:
Ray, the bench looks real good. One suggestion, when you work with heavy materials use some good HD gloves. This is especially true when you have those office hands :man:
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It's (almost) funny how these things can really drive you buggy. Man, the learning experience I had getting my old Atlas bench dialed-in to cut half decent... Took two weeks, a lot of welding and 300+ pounds of ballast to get it right. Mind you, the lathe itself was about 300lbs.

I've often wondered about bolting to the floor and I'm interested in hearing how that works out for you. Keep us in the loop on that one.

Ray


shawn said:
Its a homebuilt bench, 2x2" square tube 3/8" wall and 1/4 " plate steel top. The old bench was wood and I think it absorbed some of this vibration, it wasn't very stable though. The steel bench is a big improvement but the harmonic vibration is a pain. I'm thinking about pouring a cement slab on top of the plate but first I will add some additional cross bracing and might bolt it directly to the floor.

shawn
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Ray, in one of your post you indicated that you got some drops to build your bench. Around here I am still looking for a source for this type of material. May I ask what are you using for a source? It may give me a place to look in this area. There is very little industry left locally so I am have a little bit of a problem thinking of a place to go. Our local scrap yard will not sell to the public.
 
E&J Metals in Glen Burnie, Maryland. Don't know the contact info off hand but my vehicle knows how to get there all by itself.

I don't think they have too much more of the heavy iron left. It sat there for years. Four years ago, I bought a bunch to make the gantry then a few months ago, bought a little more for the bench. There were only 6-7 sticks left as of last week. All about 3.6' long. It's 10lbs/ft. They mainly sell stainless and aluminum.


fastback said:
Ray, in one of your post you indicated that you got some drops to build your bench. Around here I am still looking for a source for this type of material. May I ask what are you using for a source? It may give me a place to look in this area. There is very little industry left locally so I am have a little bit of a problem thinking of a place to go. Our local scrap yard will not sell to the public.
Click to expand...
 
shawn said:
Its a homebuilt bench, 2x2" square tube 3/8" wall and 1/4 " plate steel top. The old bench was wood and I think it absorbed some of this vibration, it wasn't very stable though. The steel bench is a big improvement but the harmonic vibration is a pain. I'm thinking about pouring a cement slab on top of the plate but first I will add some additional cross bracing and might bolt it directly to the floor.

shawn
Click to expand...

Hello Shawn

From my expirience you cannot have mas enough directly under Yor lathe.
Having decided how much mass You can handle/afford next question is form
If I understand correctly slap is a a flat plate of concrete.What really can make Your southbend long bed sing is a square bar as long as lathe bed with cast in bolt holes.
When lathe bed was mashined it was put on a real heavy machine table.It was even supported in the midle.You can still feel the flats.Putting a Southbend or copy on less than maximum stifness support is not realising the full potential.If mackine is stiffened up like that described the hole thing can be hung on a string from ceiling and still be a better turning lathe than most Southbends shown here.If You put the assembly on some kind of flimsy steel bench/swarf tray etc via rubber feet it will still make less noise and inaccuracy than standard mounted lathes.The block will act as a good substitute of the long defunct Southbend bed grinding mashine

Kind regards and polished granite is nice.
 
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