In June I received a 3 in 1 Central Machine . It combines a Milling machine and a Lathe in one tool, (the third is the ability to drill). I’d been dreaming of a nicer mill and lathe, but this was too good of a deal to pass up. It also fits nicely in the shop, unlike the 6000lb Bridgeport I’d been wanting.

Part of having a machine like this is having a stable support for it. If it were sitting on a pair of saw horses the vibrations would make a mess of any project I was working on. To get rid of the vibrations the energy needs to be absorbed into something...such as a large mass.

I had an oddly shaped piece of 3/8inch diamond plate . It would fit but it had a small rectangle cut out of it. I welded a patch for the corner and then cleaned up the smooth side of the plate.

The legs were made out of 3inch heavy wall box tubing. Cross braces were made from 2-1/2 by 1/4inch angle iron and 2 by 4 box tubing. Some smaller angle iron was also welded on to allow for shelving.

At the top of the legs there are threaded holes that allow lifting eyes to be installed to make moving the lathe easier. The threaded holes also allow the legs to be filled with sand to add more mass to the stand. At the bottom of the legs there are 1 inch diameter bolts so that the table can be leveled, they also allow the sand to be easily removed.

A skin of sheet metal was screwed and glued on to form walls and a backing. The sheet metal came from a old horse trailer. The glue helps tie everything together to minimize vibrations.

The doors on the front are made up of 3/8inch polycarbonate sheet that was salvaged from a dumpster. A back splash was also made out of this plastic.

I wanted to use up a lot of half filled cans of spray paint, I used a parallelogram pattern and sprayed paint from over a dozen different cans.

The mill was bolted onto the top with 10mm by 70mm stainless steel cap screws.

Completed July 19th, 2005