All projects on hold for now...

[lazylathe]

Thanks for posting the pictures Tom!
That looks like 300 pounds of granite!!! A heavy sucker!


My problem is that i have to be able to carry it or get it downstair into the basement and then up onto a bench.
No one around to really help me with the heavy stuff.
Machinery is a bit easier since i can disassemble in the garage and bring it down bit by bit.

I am looking into the granite option although maybe a bit thinner than yours!
Maybe in the 1 to 1 1/2 inch range.

Andrew

 

[Blogwitch]

Andrew,

In my younger (and disregard for safety) years, I carried an RF 25 mill/drill up a flight of stairs to an upstairs bedroom by myself. Stripped into three major pieces, four if you count the motor, and slung around the back of my neck with a strop and going up backwards got it up there. So things like that can be done.
The mill was built up on a thick piece of stainless to stop it going thru the floorboards, but the noise it made was terrible, the whole house used to shake when cutting say gear teeth in steel.

Going down is a lot easier, a sheet of ply and ropes make it an easy manoeuvre.

But getting back to your lathe mounting. I used to have, many years ago, a Myford lathe, and that was mounted (and still is, in a friends workshop) on a standard chipboard laminate faced kitchen counter top. I have found that a piece of thick counter top, supported by either wooden or a metal frame plenty strong and rigid enough for these smaller machines. In fact, I think it was the makers of my Atlas lathe that suggested 2" thick wooden dunnage was plenty rigid enough to mount the lathe to, and that was about 50% larger than yours.

John

 

[MachineTom]

That granite is 2" and not much more that 125 lbs. I know because I lifted it from my brothers yard, a leftover from a wall project. That, before I got a chair and a 25# lift capability.

 

[Niels Abildgaard]

Hello Andrew,Pete and Tom

Wellcome in the Rock Steady Latheclub.
May I suggest (As older member) to go for as much height as possible if buying a purpose stone from a graveyard stoner?
If one of you will measure approximate bolting down pattern (Myford bolt hole scheme) it is no big deal CADying a suitable stone and calculate mass.
It does not have to be flat and polished but this is nice for cleaning of course.
My first stone was hand cleaved and i used the lathe bed to keep four feeler gauge leaves down during hardening of Araldite.I had put Teflon baking paper between lathe bed and feeler gauge and when assembling and controlling lathe it was enough to put one leave of aluminium kitchen foil under one corner to have cylindricity.Less than 0.01 mm in fact

Niels