Epoxy Granite Mini Lathe Upgrade

G'day everyone,
In this video I will attempt to fill my mini lathe bed with some epoxy granite. Epoxy granite is a mix of crushed granite and epoxy resin. the aim is to add mass and damping to reduce chatter and vibrations in mills and lathes. My mini lathe weights only about 50kg, with the bed only weighting 12kg, which is very light and as such is susceptible to chatter. My aim is to add epoxy granite. For several reasons, relating to cost, density and vibration absorption I am testing using aluminum oxide garnet as a possible filler media for epoxy granite.
#machining #minilathe #epoxygranite
0:00 - Behind The Scenes Lathe Upgrades
1:36 - Intro Into Epoxy Granite
3:00 - Tearing down The Lathe and Prepping It for Epoxy Granite
7:06 - Epoxy Granite Theory
10:41 - Adding Epoxy Granite To Lathe
12:39 - Results Of Epoxy Granite and Final upgrade

[@Preso58]

I added epoxy "granite" to my Sieg X3 mill and my Toolex drill press. Definitely an improvement and reasonably easy to do. I used a mix of sand and gravel chips and as you've found out there is ton of conflicting information out there on possible combinations of materials. Marine chandlers sell good epoxies.

[@robguyatt9602]

I like that you wrote "granite". I'm suspect any stone would perform. Crushed granite is expensive.

[@DavidHerscher]

There’s a company that makes an epoxy granite product specifically for this purpose, filling machine castings. The company is DIAMANT polymer. They are based in Germany, but there is a distributor near me in the states, might be one near you as well. Also, I really enjoy seeing how much you are able to do with limited and small tools. You make the most out of everything at your disposal and that’s just awesome to see, especially in this day and age where we are often so spoiled and take too many things for granted.

[@cncrouterinfo]

Uhpc works better and is cheaper. Have a look at durfill.

[@DavidHerscher]

@@cncrouterinfo thanks I’ve not heard of it before but I’ll check it out!

[@jimporter]

I think an important factor missed here was hi statement about low cost.

[@cameronmccreary4758]

I've seen a few German machine tools that were deliberately designed from the ground up using epoxy granite. They took most of the vibration out and do a nice job machining parts.

[@JackHudler]

Yes. To get true vibration dampening using EG, you must design the machine from ground up. By creating vibration isolation areas. That's where true dampening comes from.

[@MachiningwithJoe]

Hey dude great to see you still pushing this lathe to it’s limits and the ideas you come up with for improving the lathe are great. Keep up the good work speak soon.

[@johnj5985]

Love seeing all your little upgrades, doo-dads, and tool mods anytime and throughout. It's what precision machining is all about. Carry on!

[@VHjykfUuYu]

If you want a cheaper, easier and overall better solution to the problem, just take a prefferably polished granite curb (I've used 120x20x8 cm or something like that), drill it, put it under the lathe and bolt the two together. 38 kg of solid granite really does the job.

[@lasskinn474]

That doesn't go inside the frame though? Could combine i suppose but the thing itself jumping up and down isn't the problem

[@VHjykfUuYu]

​@@lasskinn474 but you're bolting the bed to a "large" mass of stiff material. The granite mass acts as a damper, and provides a stable, solid base to rigidly fix the two feet of the lathe. It ties both ends of the lathe together, which can't be said about epoxy granite. If the lathe's feet are bolted down to plywood(as is the case here), then the bed is poorly supported, which makes the lathe prone to vibration. The granite base made a huge difference in the cut quality due to increased rigidity of the whole assembly. On one hand I don't want to diss the guy, but this improvement comes with more disadvantages than advantages. Mainly: - stupid pits inside the bed, through which chips won't fall through - same stupid pits, which won't let you run coolant, which is great for carbide tools. After some time the nooks and crannies will be filled with goo made from dust, way oil and cutting oil.

[@jamesspry3294]

Isn't granite very bad on bending stress and liable to crack if you use it like that? Might be better to attach the base of the lathe to steel, and then attach the granite to that? But yes, lots of mass will change the resonant frequency enough to get you away from the danger zone.

[@arthurmoore9488]

@@VHjykfUuYu I say fill the thing with molten lead! Or aluminum if you don't like toxic heavy metals. Aluminum has about the same density as Grantite, though likely won't be as good at vibration dampening. More inline with this project, you can just add a top coat of paint, and that solves the 2nd issue. The first can be solved by drilling holes, then painting them.

[@davidelliott5843]

Enough bending to crack the granite would destroy the cast iron it’s irrelevant for this job. Molten lead would demand the lathe bed is heated or you’ll crack the cast iron. I don’t know if lead has useful damping characteristics. Bolting the bed to a heavy steel plate would improve rigidity. A length of railway line (or two) would be properly heavy. Maybe the original bed is just badly designed.

[@spendymcspendy]

Great video! I have been watching lots of videos on epoxy granite and this one is the best! Thanks!

[@KarpucMotoring]

Thanks for sharing and im sure for those who share after you. Your one of the reasons I got a mini lathe in the first place! Cheers!

[@WeCanDoThatBetter]

Really cool! I have this on my list of things to do on my Mini Lathe too :) Interesting to see how you did it. Thanks for sharing this!

[@josecarlospoggian149]

Spectacular! Great job,I did pour concrete in a Rong Fu mill column years ago,did help for vibration ,but was messy job I love you idea ! Congrats and thanks a lot for your videos !👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👍👍👍👍👍

[@dquad]

I'd be tempted to do a pure epoxy pour over top of that grit filled surface. Over time you will get some grit coming out and it could abrade your ways.

[@autumn5592]

I thought the same, but I think there may also be a slight clearance issue, not entirely sure though.

[@MattysWorkshop]

Gday, anything added is a bonus, it’s a good thing your prepared to give this a go and see if it does work or not and share the findings, great job mate, cheers

[@MrMartinSchou]

When listening to the video, I KNOW you're saying "epoxy granite", but I keep hearing it like "places that can be filled with poxy granite", and it makes the video more fun :)

[@vijaykumardahisaria7325]

Beautiful small lathe & I like your work

[@daveunderwood6498]

I have a small mill/lathe combo, and find fixing a 15 lb weight (chunk of railroad track) on the far side of the cross slide works very well. Great video.

[@jimzivny1554]

Nice upgrade, thanks for sharing

[@ScheunenTecCNC]

Great Solution for this Tiny Lathe

[@tinkerer570]

Thank you for the video! I was wondering about the same - how to improve rigidity, add mass and maybe dampen vibrations a little. I went a different route and poured myself a 70 kg concrete slab and bolted the lathe to it. Totally worth it.

[@squatchhammer7215]

I was thinking of making a granite epoxy base. Granted they have found out that granite was a product of mineral grains and a bacterial secretion.

[@davidbrinton7173]

I used a marble granite slab

[@iancraig1951]

Good idea

[@WilliamBlakers]

@@squatchhammer7215 granite a product of bacteria ?

[@jacklewis1]

I wonder if a concrete paver might be a cheaper alternative, especially for a small lathe.

[@MonticelloSkateTeam]

If you have any granite shops nearby, you could try to get a sink cutout for a base. The common kitchen sink in America is 28×16", I used a 30×12" piece for mine, it could be as short as 21.5" from foot to foot. We usually throw sink cutouts in trash, if the guys are cool they will give it to you for free.

[@1crazypj]

The kitchen counter top people in our area (central Florida - Orlando area) want at least $20.00 for a 'scrap' cutout

[@Rubin5342]

Yup, we agree on the practicality of this. Great video. Thank you //ji

[@artisanmakes]

Glad you enjoyed the video. Cheers

[@Rubin5342]

Half way through - An amazing amount of work you are willing to expend. //ji

[@Mike-ff7ib]

Great videos!

[@jamesspry3294]

Great work mate! You are really inspiring me to get back out into my shed and finish off a few projects...! Helpful formula for you, natural frequency is proportional to the square root of the stiffness over the mass. So if you increase the stiffness the same amount that you increase the mass, it might not do much... But if you increase the mass a LOT, then the stiffness isn't as much of an issue. However, you'll still get the same amount of deflection when you are cutting. (Sigh, no free lunch hey?) Anyway, keep on doing thus stuff, as it's really useful for all of us! Cheers mate 😁

[@Oberkaptain]

Using lead shot for shotgun shells is also a great option.

[@Mister_G]

Interesting project - thanks :)

[@simonconvey9645]

I used #8 lead birdshot and epoxy for a milling machine base. Good results. ( But expensive ). My mini lathe is bolted to a granite slab, about 2 inches thick. It had to be ground / scraped at the feet to work. That was very effective.

[@greggv8]

Put the bed upside down on a mill and cut the bottoms of the feet flat. Get a length of U channel iron and clamp it open side up on the mill. Make sure it doesn't rock before clamping so it won't be twisted. Mill the edges flat. Flip it over and mill the flat side. Now you have a heavy, rigid piece to bolt the lathe bed to. It'll form a box with the bed to resist twist and bending. I used to have two of these 7" lathes and they were not very stiff. I could mount a test indicator to the carriage, put it onto a piece in the chuck and pushing on the headstock with one finger would cause enough deflection for the indicator to show. For mounting to a bench tabs could be welded to the U channel prior to any of the milling. Or mill the outer sides flat and drill holes to bolt lengths of angle iron to the U channel. I didn't do the U channel mod because at the time my mill was a Harbor Freight 12 speed drill-mill AKA "Big Red". I did manage to mill the bottoms of the feet the same amount with some careful repositioning and quite a lot of other modifications got applied.

[@fearlyenrage]

intention to inform. I made a pure wooden table for a 80kg SChaublin102 lathe. That dint workout at all. The wood is bouncing up the vibrations. It swings within so to say. I changed to a steelframe and the swinging is gone. Its as simple as it gets as heavier the table is the better is the vibration dampening. I have also a Schaublin 102vm with a 400kg castiron table or sockel. there is almost no vibration unless the cutting parameters are unbalanced. Screw your lathe table to the floor so max rigididy is gained. Is written in the manual btw. ^^ like your clips gained much from them. Thy keep em coming =)

[@jheurtin1120]

Love that ratcheting tap holder.

[@samhiscox3511]

Cut up tires would work too,, I would think,, pry them in, fill the gaps with silicone. 1st time watching. My thoughts are on a lathe that small positive rake carbide brazed tools 😂would help also. Thanks . ( my bad after watching more videos… those were positive rake, and those issues were addressed….good stuff Maynard)

[@bluejayfabrications2216]

I used the same drill press motor to made an alloy wheel polisher it's suprisingly good

[@scratch_440]

That wheel came out great.

[@Engineerd3d]

Interesting, I have been planing on doing something very similar on my mini lathe and mini mill. Time will tell. But this is not a bad upgrade.

[@natebatchelder]

Thanks for the honest review! I have to say I’m not a fan making it so the chips can’t pass through. Why not stay in the direction you went with when adding the enlarged feet and couple the lathe to an inertia base? - -Cast up a 6” thick slab and couple it to the lathe bed. -This should help pull out some resonance and be somewhat easy to reverse when moving equipment if needed you can also get it to significantly heavier than what you can fit inside the machine. -Finally, coupling the two sides of the machine should help increase its torsional rigidity - something your blend of epoxy granite wasn’t designed to do.

[@parnuzutech]

Thank you useful 👍

[@wordwyrd]

Just a thought for next time, you can easily use larger granite aggregate generally, and pour the sandblasting media in after, much like concrete.

[@helmut666kohl]

Thumbs up for the resin comparison! Polyester sure has a very messy smell, but it also shrinks noticeably. Like 5 to 10%. Epoxy still is in the 3-5% range I think. PUR is best with ~1%.

[@oddshot60]

I've been considering doing this to fill in the voids in the frame of a 14" Reliant Bandsaw (Delta clone) to increase rigidity for better cuts and mass to soak up vibration. I was thinking of using concrete as a filler, but after your vid, I think epoxy with a filler material might be a better idea. Had you considered using cast iron grindings from brake drums and rotors? You can get as much as you want from an auto repair shop for free. I checked the weight and cast iron grindings are about 125 pounds to cubic foot and aluminum oxide, depending on grade, runs from 60 to 120 pounds. On my band saw I would cut holes 3/4 - 1 inch in each of the webbing in the frame to allow the epoxy to cure as one big piece in the hope of picking up some rigidity in addition to mass.

[@Thats_Mr_Random_Person_to_you]

Great content. I kinda like the iron of saying the paint doesn't stick to well to the casting and then being unable to remove it 😅 based on the location I bet the paint there had absorbed a heap of gease and oils over time and meant the paint stripper was just unable to cut into the paint as the grease... if that was the case, no amount of 'quick' (relative term) cleaning and using a degraser to get the surface grime off would have helped! Great vid again, and thanks for doing the experiment!

[@DrewTeter]

You can increase the packing density by using multiple sizes of filler. Using 3 sizes (large, medium, and fine) is good enough for most purposes, but the relative sizes and proportions matter.

[@craigkaschan4822]

I am on my 2nd one of those drill presses. Had to return my first because the motor started smoking and lost power after 30 minutes of use. Only drilled about 10 holes. May have been a dud but haven’t used the replacement as yet. Good job as always

[@artisanmakes]

Yeah from what I've heard some of them are a bit hit or miss.

[@tsclly2377]

Thanks.. I have a 900mm table top mini lathe that need a lot of upgrades. I think that you could have used granite with the garnet and tried adding food grade silicon dioxide to the resin mix to lower the percent of actual resin and make a more stone like fill. I am on a wood table and am thinking of making a additional base out of 25-10mm metal with a fill to add dampening.

[@weekendstuff]

Thanks for the explanations and summary. Will spent time and money otherwise :-) Weekend Stuff

[@Dwarfgrinder]

I mounted my 10x24 on a 2 inch slab of concrete and filled her up with sand/epoxy. definitely made the machine have better finishes and less chatter.

[@fred8674]

Thank you - this was interesting. I noticed one tidbit towards the end about mounting/stabilizing. What were the dimensions of the steel plates you used to mount on your benchtop? Are the screws countersunk? Thanks - this is what I guess I have been moving towards for my current issue.

[@assassinlexx1993]

Clear epoxy and 7 1\2" lead shot is easy to mix up and looks cool too. But will have a lot of weight. After everything is set you can drill holes for coolant drains

[@_billyk_]

In terms of motor mounting - I'd personally add some rubber spacers to the mounts (between the motor and the mounting plate, and also under the bolt heads). Rigid mounting the motor without any dampening will let vibration transfer between the motor and lathe - If you add a soft medium between them, you'll see far less vibration being transferred into the cut As for the epoxy, that's a great idea. I've toyed with the idea of making an epoxy granite bed for my little '6040' CNC for a while but finally settled on a thick aluminium plate instead - Though I may add some mass to the underside, it depends on the space I have. I was going to use aluminium oxide ('blasting grit') just because I can get some from my work for free lol I'd suggest casting an epoxy granite / concrete slab for under the lathe if you wanted to take it a step further -Obviously there's only so far you can take these little machines but any little helps

[@glennedward2201]

Good job. Ive been doing epoxy granite for many years and its always been a worthy addition. It does come down to the quality of your mix. You could’ve used some larger pebbles and quartz, probably some other content. Using just sand will leave it heavy and flexible.

[@philmenzies2477]

Neat idea. If you go this route on your mill I would consider electrolysis to remove the paint. I have rebuilt a couple of machines and that takes you back to bare metal with almost zero elbow grease.

[@MaximKachurovskiy]

Thank you for experimenting and sharing the hard-earned knowledge. How's the chip evacuation now?

[@jamescopeland5358]

Good video

[@RoseDCLXVI]

I wonder if lead shot would be a good fill material considering it's quite dense and you can buy it in fine pellet form.

[@Kineth1]

This is a neat trick for mass-loading equipment. I can see this being helpful for many different machine types. 14:13-14:31 full volume on the cut makes the voiceover hard to understand.

[@artisanmakes]

Editing mistake I was tired :)

[@courier11sec]

I feel like brake lathe dust from your local auto repair might make an excellent medium for filling like this mixed into the epoxy. It would be nearly as good as just filling the voids with cast iron. As always, thank you for sharing your projects with us. 🙂

[@coyotearmory]

Not sure how easy it would be to find, but im curious how well mixing lead shot into the mix would work, it would definitely up the weight by a decent amount at the very least.

[@yankeedoodle7693]

I stopped fighting my mini lathe and just bought a 10x22. now I can focus on the work and not the machine.

[@1pcfred]

Are you offering to buy them a new lathe?

[@wizrom3046]

Great video! 👍 And congrats on using the sandblasting garnet as the filler, I had really great results with epoxy-garnet and was one of the first guys to popularise that composite on the CNC forums about 12 or 13 years ago. Actually I think I was the first guy to try garnet. To my taste you had the mix way too dry, it should be wet enough to flow (although slowly) not be like molding sand where you can tamp it into a shape. If anything I prefer to mix it too wet, and let the garnet settle with a lot of vibrating and the epoxy will sit on top to be skimmed off. You can actually get a tighter pack with more total garnet percentage compared to a dryer mix, I know that sounds opposite but the wet mix allows the garnet to sink to the bottom and really interlock the garnet crystals tightly.

[@thedave7760]

I would have thought depleted Uranium would be the best. If not Lead shot.

[@excitedbox5705]

Yea that is what I was thinking as well. At least 12-18% by volume which is a lot more than going by weight because the lower density of the epoxy compared to the filler. If you look at the Studer mineral casting videos on youtube you will see that they are pouring it like concrete. Rampf looks to use a slightly drier mix in their video but still enough to flow on it's own.

[@wizrom3046]

@@excitedbox5705 ... yeah agreed. I would make it even wetter, and it is not a problem because the garnet/stone sits on the bottom and the epoxy makes a layer on top. You can pour off or skim off the excess epoxy and vibrate it to settle, then add more stone (which needs to be pre-wetted) etc. I would say if you dont have even a couple mm of liquid layer on top you made it too dry. It is not cookie dough. Pour it, dont play pat-a-cake.

[@thedave7760]

@@wizrom3046 Wouldn't lead really help with this? It is one of the densest materials we have and I would think it would mix well with epoxy.

[@wizrom3046]

@@thedave7760 .. I think the big benefit from the epoxy granite is that it is very hard and rigid, but lead is soft and very bendable. Lead would also be very expensive in large volumes and difficult to work with.

[@Alakarr]

Does anybody know if anyone has tried pouring lead into these voids? Seems like that would definitely increase the mass and I think it would dampen vibration, especially if you used soft lead.

[@ziggysolczaniuk3797]

Awesome video could you do a nuther one on how u did the new motor set up

[@keithammleter3824]

Nice lathe. I've removed paint from low cost Chinese machines and found a generous layer of factory fitted rust underneath.

[@artisanmakes]

Had the same thing happen on the cover of my mill. Wasn't too happy about that. Cheers

[@Cjarka_]

I've been wondering about epoxy granite lately and thought "why not just use cast iron pieces?" it's heavier than any rock, relatively cheap and easy to get and from the chart you've shown it should be better at absorbing vibrations than sand or what you've used. Also noticed that lead alloys have even better loss coefficient so perhaps filling it with lead pellets would work even better.

[@notoioudmanboy]

Would it not be easier to bolt it to a large piece of metal beam like an I bar?

[@charlescamen5225]

How do you go with cleaning out the chips from between the ways, now that they are filled with the EG. Do the chips build up ?

[@JackHudler]

Make a concrete table top about 50mm thick then anchor the lathe to it. This will add additional mass and stiffening. Careful that you make the surface as flat as possible, or be prepared to shim to remove any bed twist.

[@howardosborne8647]

Just shim and bed the lathe casting down on metal loaded epoxy compound gets everything connected in a manner that is free from stresses or warping. Several suppliers sell epoxy bedding compounds for the specific purpose of jointing machine castings to their respective base plates to eradicate vibration.

[@joejoejoejoejoejoe4391]

I saw one video, someone was making a CNC machine from scratch, and they used granite gravel, I wondered if you could combine granite gravel with granite powder in the epoxy mix. A few days ago I had the chance to use a BIG Harrison lathe, 4 inch spindle through hole and bolted to a concrete floor, an interesting comparison to a hobby lathe - I won't knock what hobby lathes are, they have to be built to a price and I understand that, but jezz, turning a big casting ( a foot dia) at 400 rpm with ease...

[@Bob_Adkins]

Garnet was a great choice. It's sharp and heavier than granite, and harder too. Some epoxy cures softer, and some harder but it's hard to know without trying a sample. Since it's a small cavity, I thought of just pouring it full of molten lead, which should be better in some ways.

[@jackrichards1863]

Don't be tempted to add molten metal to a machine. The heat is not necessarily a positive treatment for the hardness or stiffness?

[@RaceriEmil]

@@jackrichards1863 Molten lead is not hot enough to affect the hardness of the lathebed in any way.

[@DH-xw6jp]

I too was thinking about lead. But i was going to go the route of getting a bag of bird shot to epoxy into place.

[@1crazypj]

@@RaceriEmil I read somewhere molten lead was used for tempering gun springs in 17th to 19th century?

[@frontiervirtcharter]

Lead sounds even better than what I first thought of, iron filings or bits of scrap cast iron. Lead's high ductility would likely absorb vibration well

[@eugene4154]

I just thinking about this, surely the lathe if bolted to a FLAT rigid surface will secure it and the vibration could mostly come from the way clearances?????

[@marcwagner9404]

I'm planning on doing it as well but use the same method that granitan do witch is they use 3 different size of media in there epoxy granite ( the do the epoxy granite for studer grinders and meany other grinders that have a epoxy granite base)

[@alessandrosuppini943]

Very interesting, would you be able to post the link for those charts regarding vibration assorbing materials? Cheers

[@AdamS-nd5hi]

You should buy the next size up machine class and start anew series of upgrading it. I'm certain you could get most places to sponsor the stuff too.

[@chrislee7817]

There is an old Irish joke, lost tourists ask for directions. A local says well, to get there I wouldn't start from here! My first lathe was a Hardinge HLV it's 60 years old super accurate, top quality machine. It makes me a better machinist, never had any chatter. Also cost the Same as a mini lathe. Everyday I work on it I feel honoured.

[@1pcfred]

That's nice if you can get it. There's only so many of those to go around though. You're not going to find them many places either. It's all about availability.

[@chrislee7817]

@@1pcfred there are more around than you think. Check them out. Where are you based?

[@1pcfred]

@@chrislee7817 I am out in the middle of the Atlantic ocean in a region known as, "the mid atlantic". There's nothing around here but chickens and soybeans. I'm not too far from Brandon Falls. Though Google Maps has it listed as The Big Fall now. For some reason the landmark has had a recent name change.

[@chrislee7817]

@@1pcfred The home of Hardinge. ☺ Just a courier away. Us Used Hardinge are much more expensive than UK ones though.

[@UltraNyan]

I knew you would do this mod one day.

[@goboyz8016]

Probably could have added lead shot like bird shot which would have given you some added weight. Great job loved the video.

[@jerrysanchez5453]

You had me at "it's relatively inexpensive"

[@overdbus]

Does anyone still use lead shot and a sealer ?

[@1pcfred]

I was surprised how much using a link belt helped my milling machine out when it came to surface finishes. I wouldn't think a link belt would run smoother than a plain V belt does but somehow they do. Link belts look so cool too. Once you get into them they're addictive. So be warned about that. You'll want to put link belts on everything.

[@howardosborne8647]

The many benefits of modern day link type belts are very much under rated. Polyurethane link belts make for a great drive train.

[@1pcfred]

@@howardosborne8647 you have to be careful with link belts. Once you get the taste it is hard to quit.

[@Chewcudda]

I jut found your channel and wa wondering.... what i that accordian looking cover you have made of. do you have the pec on it.... I am trying to go through your ch but figured I would ask.

[@jimporter]

Instead of using epoxy, could you use a liquid rubber mix which surely would help with dampening?

[@bobweiram6321]

The trick I figured out for using paint stripper is to thoroughly degrease painted surface. Grease, oils and wax, no matter how thin, is a paint stripper barrier.

[@ferrumignis]

Also getting industrial paint stripper rather than the useless crap they sell to the public. They removed the methylene chloride some years back and it's never worked well since.

[@psykosis101]

@@ferrumignis just buy straight DCM at that point

[@artisanmakes]

I don’t use enough paint stripper to think about it much but it’s interesting that the industrial stuff is different. Cheers

[@icusawme2]

Why not use cement/concrete? Thanks for the video!

[@TalRohan]

interesting upgrade, I think I would have added cast lead bars before the epoxy to add as much density as possible, but then I do have access to a reasonable amount of the stuff. Thanks for sharing

[@artisanmakes]

Fair enough, that stuff definitely doesn't come cheap

[@1pcfred]

@@artisanmakes You can get tire weights at a wheel shop. They usually have a drum of them. Though new weights usually aren't lead today. I don't know what they are. They're still pretty heavy but don't melt at the same temperature.

[@michaelg4931]

@@1pcfred The newer wheel weights are usually mainly zinc.

[@1pcfred]

@@michaelg4931 is that what it is? I know they don't melt like lead does. I never knew zinc was so heavy. They do float in lead. That's how I fish them out. That and the steel clips on the lead weights. From what I've read wheel weights are all kinds of different crap. I think to make the zinc heavier it is mixed with other things. Including even tungsten. Probably tungsten grinding swarf. Recycling is not always practical.

[@michaelg4931]

​@@1pcfred If there's anything from 'cleaning' the lead pot, you should be able to melt any zinc by raising the temp to about 780 °F / 415 °C and the solids will be something else. I use zinc, aluminum and a pinch of copper to make Zamak 27, or at least something very close to it (72% zinc, 27% aluminum and 1% copper), which has similar uses as cast iron. Wear a respirator and in a well ventilated area as zinc fumes are toxic.

[@tonysheerness2427]

What would happen if you used LEAD instead of epoxy granite resin?

[@timhall8511]

Would casting lead into the voids of the bed, or fine lead shot or power mixed with the epoxy be a viable choice? Genuinely curious.

[@pauls5745]

I was thinking lead too, and you could mix it in epoxy or fill voids with zinc + lead. may ways to go about it, all good and better than factory as is

[@alexanderbrikunov4122]

Great idea. of the advantages, a large shrinkage of lead during cooling, the inevitable thermal deformation of the bed, and of course the thermal release of the hardened guides of the bed.

[@Larken42]

There’s also the health and safety risk of working with 11 kg (≈22 lb) of molten lead. I would like to think that the better solution would be to mix in a percentage of lead shot to the casting to distribute the mass around the epoxy

[@ambsquared]

I bet the lead shot in the epoxy would be good. Casting lead while not needing a furnace, still a lot of heat to expose the cast iron to. Lead is pretty good for a metal at absorbing vibrations too. With the volume available, could more than double the weight. Of course if it was just weight to add, fill it with tungsten. Found a 4” cube that is over 18kg, but cost is about $4000. At that price, just get a bigger lathe.

[@ThePsiclone]

I wouldn't expect pouring molten lead into the bed to have a good effect on the bed, 1) the bed isn't going to thank you for all that heat. 2) the bed isn't going to thank you for all that shrinkage when the lead cools down. (if you've ever left a pot of molten lead to solidify, you'll notice there's usually a crater formed in the centre due to the lead shrinking) If you want to make your lathe bed look like a banana, just paint it yellow ;-)

[@Tom-yc8jv]

@04:05 Sand blasting would have been a LOT better, to get a surface that will epoxy to stick to it. You can get a hand held sand blaster for 30 dollars.

[@Tom-yc8jv]

@05:00 Duct tape, just by itself, would have worked as well and with MUCH less work.

[@artisanmakes]

From experience, resins can dissolve the sticky adhesives in tape since many resins have solvents in them.

[@Tom-yc8jv]

@@artisanmakes That's fine, it wouldn't get to the adhesive that is holding the tape to the lathe, just the section that is open to the epoxy.

[@TheDeveloperGuy]

I know, eopxy granite is the best, but it's relative expensive. I wanted to play with fiberglass reinforced concrete (with some extra additives). Is it that much worse?

[@artisanmakes]

I really couldn’t tell you. You might have to look for a source of whether it not it works, if one even exists.

[@simonconvey9645]

Could you post a link to the paper you referenced at 9:40 ? Looks like a good read.

[@termlimit]

One more thing you can do is to bolt it down to a piece of granite. I went to a granite supplier and got a small piece large enough for the mini lathe (gave it to me for free) and it was definitely worth it. Great job as always.

[@mk6595]

Absolutely not. Small lathe beds are easily twisted by bolting them down.

[@heybabycometobutthead]

@@mk6595 All lathe beds are bolted down.

[@rowanwiegel4695]

@@mk6595 they just need to be leveled like any other lathe. Bolt them down

[@slimjim3229]

Interesting. I like the comment about mounting the machine to a slab of granite from a countertop vendor. I finally made larger diameter brass nuts for my QC tool holders. I need to pony up and get the mill.

[@TheMadJoker87]

dumb question, how about using led pellets instead of garnet or granite? not sure about the dampening vibrations part but it would definitely add a lot more mass. also, as you mentioned, i think the biggest improvement would be to change the wood table for a steel mounted frame, or even concrete

[@JackHudler]

You could do this. However, lead shot is getting difficult to find in some countries. But don't get me started on the stupidity of lead regulations.

[@haydenc2742]

I think a more dense base rather than mounted to a wooden top table would be best, maybe a large pillar of concrete it can bolt to, this way there is way more mass for it to push the vibrations to that would dampen it...usually big lathes are bolted down to a huge thick concrete slab...or weigh tons rather than pounds

[@erikjoven2388]

Would lead shot work as a filler?

[@BubbleOnPlumb]

When I needed to add weight and vibration dampening to my anvil stand, I used lead BB's (bird shot) to fill up a large void in the stand. It worked like a champ. Now the void I filled was totally sealed afterword so there is no chance at all of any of the lead or lead dust getting getting out of the containment space. Completely encapsulating the lead shot in epoxy resin should also serve to prevent lead dust generation as long as there is no chance of routinely abrading or otherwise damaging the epoxy/lead matrix. Keep in mind that lead is toxic and lead poisoning is a thing. You must be very careful and safety minded any time you work with, or around, lead to counter potential exposure risk.

[@MyLonewolf25]

you could always bolt it down to a steel slab or granite slab for extra mass

[@markkoons7488]

Wheel weights are still available for here for free. I've used several hundred pounds for vibration dampening mass over the years and wonder whether suspended in a sand/epoxy mix they might not serve very well in this application. The mass is certainly there.

[@byronhaley1566]

It seems to me that #8 or #12 lead shot would have been a good choice to mix with the epoxy.

[@6NBERLS]

I would have been tempted to look for some barite sand (i.e. barium sulfate). They use this to add weight to the mud used for oil well drilling. They also use it to fill the sandbags used in bench rest rifle shooting. Heavy stuff: the mineral barite. If barite proved too expensive, I would have put #4 lead buckshot in the epoxy.

[@artisanmakes]

Not too familiar with that type of sand. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it in the future

[@hampopper3150]

I'm surprised you didn't get a sewing machine servo motor.

[@afhamajmal8632]

Or the chips from turning?

[@thiagosanchez4453]

I considering build a concrete bench for my lathe, as you trim it accordingly with proper bolt and adhesive epoxy you should get better result, theres no significant mass to dump, the cast itself is kinda of massless

[@RedDogForge]

what about lead shot as a epoxy filler?