The project scale is amazing, material selection is questionable. Aluminium gets work fatigued too quickly and becomes brittle. For a lathe, this can be incredibly dangerous.
This was the most awesome large aluminum lathe bed casting I've ever seen. I've seen home made lathes and a lot of Gingery aluminum machine castings but not one like your scaled up version. I just saw took a glimpse at all of your videos, I'm subscribing. I'm gonna binge watch them this weekend. I'm going to keep my eye on this build, too.
So excited for this new chapter! I really wasn't sure such a massive lost foam casting would go well, but, the title didn't say it was an epic failure, so I was somewhat clued in 😅
I just found and subscribed. While Aluminum is not my first choice, I think you will get some good use out of this lathe. Looking forward to seeing this lathe come to life.
I find this really impressive and thank you for taking us along on this project, the end result did not disappoint, after flattening this will be a great base. inspiring, I might make some parts for my cnc this way. can't wait for the next video.
You have a lot of nads. This is a super nice job. I have watched so many videos and most tell you that you must degas and BLAH BLAH BLAH but this is absolute proof that lost foam is the only way to go.
yes it is a steel crucible and the gates and risers are that large because at the time those where the only plastic pipes I had at hand to form the mold
Very cool project and nice video! The material choice baffles me a bit though. I looked through your channel and looks like you got a lot of aluminium so I guess the primary motivation was "free material" to make it out of, but I don't think it's a good choice as lathe base. You want as much weight as you can in your base and as much similar materials so everything you mount to it stays solid and doesn't warp with temperature changes and different expansion rates, so that's why most lathes are either steel or cast iron. Next to that the aluminium is also a lot softer so the wear surfaces will be worn out more quickly. Even if you mount steel linear rails, it's still going to warp a lot and stuff will be under a lot of tension, contrary to aluminium extruded profiles that can give a bit of way and stuff is usually mounted with locknuts that aren't absolutely fixed in place, as well as those machines being inherently limited in what kind of materials they can handle. As far as I understand it, you never want to work on materials harder than what the machine is made of, so this lathe would only really be suited to work on other aluminium or things like brass, since the machine itself will flex resulting in worse precision or even tool chattering while working on harder materials. But the thing I really dislike about using all this aluminium as a lathe base is that it's perfect material to use on the lathe or on a mill. It's kind of a waste to put such nice material on the base of the machine when you could make the base out of iron or steel and use the aluminium to make beautiful stuff! But I'm not hating on the project, that's a beautiful cast and I'm sure you can make a functioning lathe out of it, it's just something I've never really seen before.
Eh it can be done, it definitely can be done. I work in a wafer fab producing devices on nm scales, a lot of our machines are aluminum based with steal linears. Some of those have run 24/7/365 for 25 years now without damage to the aluminum base (to address your wear comments).
Weigh a 1” x 1” x 1” piece of foam and the same of aluminium then next time weigh your foam form before moulding in sand and calculate the weight for aluminium then add 10% for losses that will give you a good starting point
for surfacing, you just have to make two more of these and then rub them together according to the three plates method. easy peasy! (seriously though, this is amazing)
Dude, f*k the haters. That’s the largest home casting I’ve ever seen, and it came out much better than I expected. Me personally, I would probably weld steel than pour aluminum; but, I’ll definitely follow your journey and see where it takes you.
Impressively done. Make sure the ways are leveled and machined to the best tolerances you can get before using it or you’ll end up with inaccuracies in the spindle bores of the machines you’re making.
But there is also problem with two different materials with different thermal expansions joint together. It will warp with changing temperature. And with long piece like this it can be a lot.
@@kigara3906 nah, bimetallic actuation is measurable on enclosed 3d printers because of significant assembly/operation delta, but for reasonable repeatability on “open air” cnc it’s completely fine
Maybe a shop that works on large engines like those used in naval vessels would have a mill large enough? If you can't find one perhaps you can make a 'self-milling' device. Like an angle grinder on a sled.
i wonder, can you fill a mold like that from both ends? you'd have needed 2 furnaces to heat up two loads of Al in tandem, and i guess 4 people to pour it in unison, but if you filled from both ends at the same time wouldn't it have reduced the cooling issue?
It's a fantastic result, but that doesn't change that it is the wrong material. You will find out when you are machining why people are saying this. All the encouragement is appropriate and well deserved, but none of them have actually used a lathe to the extent that they understand the materials used and why they are necessary. It is still a great job and great experience with such a large casting. Well done.
Can you fill the cavities with epoxy granite to dampen vibrations that will occur when using the lathe? Will you be adding hardened steel rails for the way surfaces?
This is how i run the first part after coding. I use foam instead of the material, because it can be measured, and it gives way if there is a bad line of code without breaking the expensive tooling. Also you can run feeds at like 600% in foam so checking the very 1st part after coding the part is far less time consuming. Ps Hope that lathe bed doesnt warp all over when you load it, I have a bad feeling you made a chatter box lathe under load. But I have a bit of faith and a whole lot of hope it works anyway! -- Machinist/Tool and die, fabricator of HP.
That's the problem with extruded foam. Its way thicker than styro foam so it takes more energy and time before it can burn it down. Since having a quite big enough cnc there is a possibility using sand and sodium silicate to create sandstone blocks and machine the molds like a puzzle. Ofcourse takes way more time than cnc'ing foam, but you'll avoid loose sand bits and the aluminium will set out more evenly
I was fully prepared for something janky as hell. This was the opposite of that. Surprisingly clean casting, really curious about how you plan to finish it.
I was surprised to see a new video from you and then equally surprised to find I was no longer subbed. I think YT automatically dropped my sub during your break from uploading 😕
Awesome job, man. I wonder if you could have preheated the entire thing to assist in the travel problem. Doesn't matter, it's out of sight and of minimal structural significance. Impressive home setup, Impressive furnace, subscribed liked and will be reviewing the back catalogue.
When you think about it, you dont need to grind and level the aluminium, its only the steel ways that matter. Once they are scraped flat, bolting them in place, even using Babbitt levelling compound, should do thevtrick
Very impressive cast for DIY. A lot of people are shitting on the material choice but once bolted down this will do just fine. Yeah iron is great, but if you can cast 150+ kg of iron at once in your shed, that’s not a shed that’s a foundry. I sure ain’t volunteering to be the one holding a bucket of 1800+ degree molten death that’s heavier than most fridges lol. Be realistic.
