Milling machine - video

[mwmkravchenko]

At $0.30, steel would be huge news here. Scrap rate is so high, it's virtually unobtainable, no matter what configuration of red iron, tubing, common bar stock, plate etc.

With less machinery being cast iron these days (and that advantage of natural dampening), you'll do well creating artificial filler that will accomplish that. Sand mixed with a little oil is a common material. Concrete type ballast shrinks, losing contact with vessel containing it, nullifying desired effect.
Building a machine of weldments is a super ambitious undertaking, I'll be following your posts, despite late joining the party. You'll get plenty of assistance from the entire HMT.net community.

One thing about concrete. It doesn't shrink to much if it is properly mixed, and reinforcement rods internally keep it in place.

Second thing. Cast irons biggest plus is mass. It's structure is actually not as wonderful as we might imagine. A casting is a crystalized form of iron with as much carbon in it to lower the melting temperature as they determine is useful. Steel, a much lower carbon version of the same base metal can be just as god with your dampening methods mentions along with concrete dampening which is one of the easiest. Some place I have machine structural methods that use concrete inside nested tubes that make up very well behaved columns that are not crazy heavy.

Mark