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
I used to work in the casting industry. Overall, great job! However, I want to warn you against machining into any of the surfaces too deeply - I didn't see you bubble nitrogen through your liquid aluminum to drive entrained hydrogen out of solution. While not bad on its own, you'll find that the casting will have waaay more porosity than you'd think in those thicker areas, and is probably the reason for the porosity defects you noticed.
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.
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).
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.
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)
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?
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
Aluminum will work well for a home-made lathe. I have in mind to make one with aluminum-zinc alloy using aluminum from recycling and zinc obtained from recycled zamak, the idea is that zinc increases the hardness and reduce vibrations. Aluzinc alloy is very hard and is composed of 50% aluminum and 50% Zin. I will try with 20% zinc, 2% copper and the rest aluminum from profiles and soda cans.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 😕
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.
Very impressive. another 25 to 50 C on the superheat would have been good to prevent the cold shuts and maybe another 5 or so kg. Why no risers on the very ends of the pattern?
We used to do aluminum foam casting in shop class back in the 90's. Lemme tell you, we did not have the appropriate ventilation lol. Had a thought after seeing how the aluminum cooled before it could finish the very edges. Do you ever preheat the mould after you finish packing it, or could that cause defects in your compression? Packing heating elements vertically into the sand to warm up the path through the foam might work. But seriously, that's amazing.
Nice job. Huge respect for such casting. At the same time there are questions with hull stiffness of future lathe. Why didn't you reinforce it with steel rods or something like that? Plus, upper surface will be grinded by moving parts of lathe. You will need to put there steel too. Best regards. ^^
Nice bed, however, I'd be concerned about building a lathe out of aluminium due to the high thermal expansion, and wear issues when compared to cast iron. Facing the slides with cast iron or steel you would end up with thermal expansion differences with the materials. You have piqued my interest so I subbed and will enjoy the journey with you 👍
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
The only thing that makes me angry about this video is I did not catch it months after you made it and finished the lathe. I hate waiting!!! I can't wait to see this thing come together.
No way man
I used to watch your videos 7yrs ago as an 11yr old and now I was planning on building my own lathe and I come across you again
Dude, results speak for themselves. ANYONE saying ANYTHING negative about this project has NEVER tried to do something this awesome. Keep going.
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.
Man, just lifting 70kgs of molten aluminium is nuts. Epic job!
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.
MyFordboy would be proud - epic casting
I have to say it came out so much better than I thought it would. That is a huge project to cast. Thumbs Up!
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 😅
Wow. I'd be out in the street dancing like a crazy man if I'd pulled that off first try like that! Fantastic job!
Lolololoololololololololol to tedious for me.
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.
nice to see you doing projects again...
Just incredible. I'm very much looking forward to the next entry!
Been following you for years, it’s been awesome watching your skills and projects progress. Please continue sharing, your hard work is appreciated!
Okay, an algorithm suggestion that I’m stoked about.
Excited to follow this.
AWESOME JOB!
whoa, you were the solid aluminum bat channel from years ago! Now I remember. Its been too long... good to see some content going up.
I know it's been said but I'm so glad you're back. Good luck with the new workshop, hope everything goes smooth. Looking forward to it.
What a job! Well done. That looks tremendous and hopefully a good basis for your new lathe.
Amazing casting, you're incredibly talented
Very well done!! That’s an impressive feat!
You have a very high level of experience nice I'm happy to see someone trying hard to build something special
Really glad to see your content again, man. I missed you.
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.
So cool, I can't wait to see what kind of performance you get from this lathe
Wow!! You like to do things in a big way. I cant wait to see the rest of this project.
I’m all caught up to recent videos, I’m excited to see your plans and I pray you get the dream workshop you want, most high God bless you
I am like all watching totally chocked and amazed. What a magnificent outcome for first try. It inspires people. 👍🙏
Awesome! Such a cool project!
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
Time to start scraping!
Can't wait to follow this project. Looks good and fun.
dude that is a huge cast and overall turned out very well for the size!
i thought i did large casts. lol
Very cool! Thank you for sharing this process!
I used to work in the casting industry. Overall, great job! However, I want to warn you against machining into any of the surfaces too deeply - I didn't see you bubble nitrogen through your liquid aluminum to drive entrained hydrogen out of solution. While not bad on its own, you'll find that the casting will have waaay more porosity than you'd think in those thicker areas, and is probably the reason for the porosity defects you noticed.
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.
Welcome back! I missed your videos, bro
You are lucky to have had it come out good the first time.
That casting is huge! Very impressive and exciting.
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.
You are not a machinist. You have never even laid hands on a lathe.
@@bami2 You made my point.
@@Katchi_ they are right....
@@Katchi_ He's not wrong though, that's typically why machine bases are cast iron or granite
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).
What a gangster! Amazing build dude.
damn bro that's a massive project and you're handlin it like a champ
Welcome back MP dragon
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?
Very impressive. Very few flaws and none that matter.
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.
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)
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?
Very nice!
Thanks for sharing
Cheers
This is the content i love!!!!
Pretty good in fairness considering what you had to work with!
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
Вот это отливка! Выглядит впечатляюще! Однако, станок будет иметь проблемы с жесткостью - это однозначно!
Aluminum will work well for a home-made lathe. I have in mind to make one with aluminum-zinc alloy using aluminum from recycling and zinc obtained from recycled zamak, the idea is that zinc increases the hardness and reduce vibrations. Aluzinc alloy is very hard and is composed of 50% aluminum and 50% Zin. I will try with 20% zinc, 2% copper and the rest aluminum from profiles and soda cans.
That thing is amazing! Man, fine work. Maybe you could find a huge sheet of glass and use that to smooth it off
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.
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.
Badass. Subscribing for the rest of this 👊🏻
just have this old tony karate chop it flat... seriously though, that is an impressive cast, can't wait to see you surface it.
Great awesome job, what a size !! Thanks for sharing
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.
Beautiful casting
that's a pro job! well done!
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.
add hardened steel to the ways you'll be glad you did the alu is a okay base but will wear quickly
i'm pretty sure that ways are just flat base for linear rails
that's the plan
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.
there are cnc machines made out of extruded aluminum profiles that have linear rails
@@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
Absolutely genius.
Wishing you all the best in your awesome effort ....!
Send it to Steve Watkins, he owns a 1943 planner that is just the thing for getting things flat
Really great work!
Super cool! Well done!
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 😕
Subbed! Can't wait to see how this turns out!
Thats impressive work.
That's a cool part.
And absolutely amazing to do that as a DIYer.
But aren't these normally cast iron? Cheaper, heavier, all that
This project got you my sub! Thank you!!!
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 looks amazing! Wouldn't it be a good option to use a big sheet of a sandpaper on a flat surface to make the lathe casting straight?
Very impressive. another 25 to 50 C on the superheat would have been good to prevent the cold shuts and maybe another 5 or so kg.
Why no risers on the very ends of the pattern?
We used to do aluminum foam casting in shop class back in the 90's. Lemme tell you, we did not have the appropriate ventilation lol.
Had a thought after seeing how the aluminum cooled before it could finish the very edges. Do you ever preheat the mould after you finish packing it, or could that cause defects in your compression? Packing heating elements vertically into the sand to warm up the path through the foam might work.
But seriously, that's amazing.
Nice job. Huge respect for such casting. At the same time there are questions with hull stiffness of future lathe. Why didn't you reinforce it with steel rods or something like that? Plus, upper surface will be grinded by moving parts of lathe. You will need to put there steel too. Best regards. ^^
You might be able to find stainless steel linear rails which would expand slightly more with heat then standard Steel.
Beautiful...like poetry!
Awesome, perhaps hand scraping the surfaces is the way to go? Nice project
for scraping you need a very flat reference surface. at this size that is very expensive. I will try a more diy method
Wow. You’ve definitely just gained a new sub!
Woaw, prieks dzirdēt progresu!
fantastic job
oh this is going to be good, subbed
This is so cool!
Wow! That was awesome.
remake the solid aluminum baseball bat please
this is amazing !
I would recommend making the ways from ground steel or cast iron if possible for longevity.
Awesome man!
nice work!
Nice bed, however, I'd be concerned about building a lathe out of aluminium due to the high thermal expansion, and wear issues when compared to cast iron. Facing the slides with cast iron or steel you would end up with thermal expansion differences with the materials. You have piqued my interest so I subbed and will enjoy the journey with you 👍
Dude… sick!
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
Nice size !
Olá amigo trabalho fantástico !!!Esse projeto me interessa e muito, e vou acompanhar!!!
Abraço e boa sorte sempre!!!
Did you prepare those aluminum ingots yourself? What is Grade # 1? One heck of an endeavor! It came out great!
The only thing that makes me angry about this video is I did not catch it months after you made it and finished the lathe. I hate waiting!!! I can't wait to see this thing come together.
Very cool .. will you be buying harden ways? I’m curious to see this process
Man has a foundry factory in his house