I'm currently building a variation of the Gingery lathe. The Gingery series of books on building your metal shop from scrap begins with a furnace, then a lathe, then a shaper, a mill and then accessories for these. (Also there is a drill press and a folding brake)
Some time ago I bought the lathe and the mill books. I began to source materials for the lathe, and as time went on I realized the mill, actually an horizontal type, was in fact a lathe with a short bed. Therefore I decided to combine both :
With this idea in mind I decided to make the bed a welded steel design instead of the aluminium cast bed. I came up with this:
I welded very carefully the two tubes. The weld was peened afterwards. The rebar extends from one end to another through the hole
The tubes were filled with concrete. Prior to filling I laid the ways (1/2" thick, BTW) onto the bed and drilled and fastened them together. Also I drilled holes for the mill headstock on the left side. Then I removed ways and headstock, put plastic tubing in each hole to make the space for the screws:
Then the bed was filled with concrete and set apart to cure for a month. The headstock is also a welded construction, but with aluminium pads joined on for the headstock ways to rest:
It was made from two large L's 1/4" thick welded back to back plus side pieces. It has 3/16" bolts to anchor concrete filler:
This is the result. Note that the ways are 1/2" thick:
Next operation is to bore the headstock. So I fitted in the lathe's leadscrew, apron and split nut. I built up the nut from some bronze and steel plate. As I had forgotten to cast the apron and did not felt like firing up the furnace for just a piece I grabbed a piece of hardwood of similar dimensions and 1¾" thick:
The carriage and worktable are the ones for the mill. The apron is screwed to an enlarged front bottom clamp:
Boring the headstock. I have offset the headstock backwards, as in the lathe. My rationale is that a forward offset headstock will force the compound rest and thence the tool to lie off the ways and thus unsupported. Gingery must have had the same idea:
Once bored the headstock, I put the arbor on UHMW-PE bushings as an experiment. Went on to face the faceplate. I did some experimenting with hand turning. Here you can also see the homemade engravers I used:
After that I fashioned a temporary tool post from some U-channel plus a temporary screw support for the work table screw:
A couple of shots of the whole thing so far:
Making angle plates from angle iron:
Machining the mill's universal base:
More and better to come, hopefully...