On Nov 24, 2:03*pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:
"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...

Right. Maybe you've peeked at my ideas for a ferrocement lathe with steel
ways. d8-)

(Having finished reading Naaman's _Ferrocement & Laminated Cementitious
Composites_, I'm less enthusiastic about that construction.)
Ed Huntress-

Too late. There's one from ~1830? at the American Precision Museum
with wrought iron ways mortared into grooves in a granite base.

Another possibility is to make the ways rigid but not precise, like
spacers blocks between two channel irons, and use a bolt-on X-Y table
to control the tool. I would make the head and tailstock spindles a
standard drill rod size and use a separate piece of it to align the
head, tail and X-Y table axes after moving them.

jsw