"Chuck Sherwood" wrote in message
...

I use to have an OLD craftsman/atlas lathe that I used for cast iron work.
I have since replaced it with a very nice rockwell 11 inch lathe and
it will bother me to turn CI on it but I guess thats life.

Interesting thought... I wonder if anyone here has actually experienced wear
on their machine, based on excessive use in a harsh environment.

At work, we have large radial arm drill presses (roughly 15ft high, perhaps
8ft reach). We're constantly grinding (with disc and die grinders) around
them and they've been there for many years. They're still very capable
machines, even with their exposed boxways.

I'm not saying I'd want to have my machine exposed to a similar environment,
but I wonder if cutting the odd chunk of cast iron would greatly affect the
capability of most machine tools...

Regards,

Robin