On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:50:31 -0700, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:24:56 +0000 (UTC), des bromilow wrote:
I was hoping that with a substantial thickness sheet, I could support
the lathe, and taper turning attachment, motor bracket, and then still
be able to support DTI bases, etc plus the swarf, tooling, etc

Then I would suggest at minimum, a nice sheet of 1/2" plate, if you
can't find any 5/8" plate.

0.5" steel plate would weigh about 20#/sq ft, so for example a
2' x 4' top would weigh 160#. Some 1"-thick composites like at the
following links would be plenty stiff and weigh only 1.2# per sq ft.
This stuff isn't expensive, it costs less than $10 per sq ft.

http://www.portafab.com/aluminum_honeycomb_panels/alum_on_alum.shtml
http://www.pacificpanels.com/GPpanel.html
http://www.panelteccorp.com/html/stockpanels.html

....
On Jul 25, 5:02 am, des bromilow wrote:
....
I have a tabletop which supports a small lathe, and the tabletop
is made of wood, and I'm replacing it with sheet steel.
The lathe support is a substructure under the sheet, the sheet itself
just has to hold random tools and swarf and capture any dripping
coolant?
....

If the tabletop is just holding tools as you suggest, I think 1/8"
steel is thick enough for unsupported spans of a few inches -- eg
could be supported by welded-on rails at 8"-12" intervals. If you
are going to use the table for any heavy hammering, or if it's
bigger than say 3'x4', go on up to 1/2" or 5/8" steel sheet like
Gunner recommends, and put crossbars along the bottoms of the legs
so you can move the table around with a $250 pallet jack.

--
jiw