Shopsmith Forums

I'm thinking of filling my bench tubes with lead to add weight. Any thoughts on why it won't work?

I filled mine with sand. Added 10 to 20 lbs. It does dampen vibration. That's in part why I chose it. If you can fill them with lead shot I'm sure that would work. If the challenge is to add weight that should do it. The best suggestion I can give would be to tie the way and bench tubes together with boards or other clamping mechanism. Just relying on the hold down lever for the way tube assembly isn't quite enough to really dampen vibration.

I have a tie bar that I made to hold down the way tubes. If you noticed a difference with the sand I should notice a big difference with the lead. Now to find that much lead without the price being crazy.

jcraigie wrote:I have a tie bar that I made to hold down the way tubes. If you noticed a difference with the sand I should notice a big difference with the lead. Now to find that much lead without the price being crazy.

Given any thought to filling both the bench and the way tubes?

I stayed away from filling the way tubes for the weight of raising the unit to drill press. Now, I have seen guys who have a pulley system to help them raise the unit. All that being said, I would only fill both if I though the whole thing needed it as a milling machine. But, the ss is not rigid enough for me to go to that extreme without other changes..I simply need a metal lathe. Anyone have one for sale?

This is not a new idea and some people have done it. filling both bench and way tubes adds a lot more weight but if it is ever going to be used in vertical mode you will need a couple of friends to help you.

I don't recall the amount of weight you can get but you will need to know the volume of the tubes and the amount of shot that will fit. There are tables for this but going from memory a ball park number is like 80% of the weight for shot verses filling with all lead.

The bad news normal comes when you get to the cost. The lead shot of old has been gone for a while, the new shot is wildlife save and costs more.

Since my memory might be a little on light side I would go to google to search this forum:

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=e ... 91&bih=831

This will get you to several previous discussions and the link to the discussion at www.ssug.org (site is very slow)

You may have to wade in the reading and it will likely keep you busy for a while reading it all.

Happy reading,

Ed

you might find lead cheap at a old tire shop some of them have tons of lead lying around in 5 gallon buckets. and since it is very soft you could hammer it into the shape you need to fill your tubes by making a form of some kind.

If you work out the calculations on filling the tubes with led shot, it will take about 100 pounds to fill the four tubes. If you buy the reclaimed shot from ROTOMETALS, it will cost you about $170.00.

... OR..., you could just use solid steel tubes. Not as heavy, but certainly rigid. Now, to get them... that's the rub!

Derek

I would think that tightly packed sand or cement would certainly help with the vibration dampening.
Sure it's not as heavy as lead, but it will be a helluva lot cheaper and won't poison you in the long run!