Secondhand Cast Iron T-Slot Bed 900 x 600mm

As you do, over a bacon butty in a morning or a porkl pie for lunch I had been browsing T-Slot Beds and Fixture plates. I have also got the option to embed inserts into the granite bed. I don't fancy drilling 500 holes in it though. I stumbled across a new listing on Ebay from a machine shop down south for a Cast Iron T-Slot Bed. I gave the guy a call and negotiated a bargain basement proud and before I know it i have a huge chunk of Cast Iron. I believe it weighed in at 160kgs.

IIt certainly wasn't in pristine condition. There was somesurface rust that was only cosmetic and there were some seemingly hardened pins and a number of location holes. I haven't done anything with it yet, but if i choose to I could easily make use of it as it is, or I can grind off the pins and have it cleaned up at a grinders. It is 900 x 600mm so it is really a good size match for the granite bed. Let me know your thoughts on what you would do with this T-Slot Bed.

Time to try and give it a bit of a clean up and see what its like under that grime.

White Vinegar works wonders on surface grime and rust and it came up pretty good.

It came up reasonably well. There is a lot of signs of use and locating pins which i can remove. i could always skim it over once the machine is completed.

A dry run just to see how it would fit and look on the machine. I also used this a an excercise to think about where i would mount it on the bed in relation to a future ATC and the possibility of a 4th axis in future.

The size of it seems quite balanced for the size of the bed and the majority of future jobs. It could always be relatively easily removed for jobs that require the absolute maximum footprint available, or direct clamping to the granite.

Please let us know your thoughts on this find and if you have any ideas of what i should do with the location pins etc on the top surface...

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