"Andrew VK3BFA" wrote in message
oups.com...
MDF - if sealed, its pretty ok - and besides, I dont
think its going to warp a cast iron bed (Could be wrong, please correct
me if I am).

MDF _will_ warp your lathe out of true. It might not move enough to break
anything (perhaps not even to cause serious wear), but it will screw up your
work.

One really _weird_ solution I seen used in a home shop was to cast a
honey-combed concrete table top that sits on a wood stand. Yeah...
concrete.

The table top must've weighed as much as the lathe... but I can see how
well-reinforced, well-cured concrete would be a damned stable top!

OTOH, a sheet metal 'base' cabinet is really the way to go. They're cheap
to buy, cheap to fabricate on your own, and perfectly stable dimensionally,
if designed well. They're also a nice place to heap up all your
accessories, so long as you occlude chips and coolant from falling into the
base.

That won't work, either, unless you're placing the lathe on a stable (say,
concrete) floor. A wooden floor on wooden joists is as bad as a poor table.

LLoyd