My furnace isn't big enough to melt enough aluminum for a cast bed as described so I'm going to cheat and use a couple of square steel tubes with a flat steel piece on top.
I also couldn't find a nice flat piece for the ways so once again I'll improvise with a pair of steel pieces. The ways won't be perfect, but I hope that they'll be good enough until I can come up with something better.
The flat steel piece under the ways is actually a lot of work. It started out like the piece on the right, with a black paint-like covering that was rusting underneath. I filed and sanded down the piece. And it continued to rust very quickly. (It's the rainy season here in Japan and the humidity is very high.)
Once it is firmly attached to the square steel tubes and the feet, I'll scrape it flat before putting on the ways.
The bed piece has been secured to the feet. I have begun scraping it so that the top of the bed is flat. This should ensure that the ways themselves are reasonably flat too.
For some reason, the spotting dye apparently tends to be orange in Japan rather blue. Blue might be a little easier to see though. Sometimes the angle of the light against the metal and orange coloring makes the high spots very difficult to see.
The brownish paint around the edges is a feeble attempt to prevent rust.
2004/02/09. OK, enough scraping. The bed is reasonably flat now and I have attached the ways.
The bed and ways are almost done. I still have to drill a few holes in the feet so that I can secure the lathe to some kind of surface. Yes, I know I should have done the holes first...
