Workshop Tetris (again) - and new benchtop

Tetris?
Finally got round to getting some machine skates from Temu and AliExpress so that I can move the Tree CNC lathe from the middle of the workshop where The Mad Jocks left it, blocking any kind of movement of machines and large objects.

I've never managed to find any mention of the weight of the Tree in any of the various brochures, manuals, forums etc. I started to model it up in Fusion but that was partly due to being bored off my tits at the time, rather than any serious attempt to estimate its mass. 

The "frame" of the machine is cast iron, of a piece with the bed - rather than being fabricated as a support for the bed as is often the case. That's why it's so effing heavy.

As it stands, this model is reported (by Fusion) to weigh in at just under a tonne. However, it lacks the actual machine bed ways, saddle, cross slide, turret, tailstock, hydraulic pack, spindle motor, spindle, headstock, enclosure etc, so perhaps 2.5 tonnes or so wouldn't be far off the mark for the completed machine, if I ever got around to completing the modelling work. Don't hold your breath.

Finally, I got a message from a fellow Tree owner who reckoned he'd heard "6000lbs" somewhere. In the absence of any other figure, that's the most credible number I can go on. That's about 2.7 tonnes, which feels about right. The Shizuoka is around 3.5 tonnes and gives a similar impression of weight.

These machine skates claim to be for 8t and 15t respectively, although those are Chinese tonnes of course.

View from the outside door (fire escape?) corner of the room:

With that bench removed, I can see a space where the lathe could sit up against the wall out of the way:

Here's the "8 tonne" skate with a sort of pretend turntable on top...

...and 2 of the "15 tone" skates at the other end of the machine:

Progress is slow when you are single handedly trying to move this kind of lump.

Using a wooden lever to inch the thing along without completely destroying the floor:

Nearly there. Now it "just" needs to swing in, flush with the wall.

Ooof. Nearly there.

There we go:

And the bench?

That bench I moved out of the way has been bugging me for ages. Ideally it'd be reasonably flat but this one has never been remotely so to my recollection. 

FFS, the centre of the bench has sagged an inch. There's no way back from that, as they say. Although it seems to have a nice working surface, the substrate is just MDF, so perhaps that's no great surprise. This is destined for the dump.

B&Q to the rescue. I was torn between 19mm "moisture proof" tongue and groove chipboard and "marine" plywood. The former isn't anything of the sort and neither is the latter. But at £65 for a 4'x8' sheet cut to size, the 19mm plywood didn't look too bad a deal. So with a 900mm x 1800mm section cut out, it simply screws to the frame:

Yes, I used a router to round off the corners and a sander to smooth out any rough edges.

Finally, some Osma wax / oil to give it a degree of protection against oil, crud etc. Varnish wouldn't be much improvement, as it would soon chip off. Besides, I have this stuff to hand. It's what I used on the oak worktop that we recently installed in the kitchen and seems to hold up

There. That looks better. If I can find some patience, I may even apply a second coat once this has dried. Admittedly, that seems unlikely but you never know.

That's it for now...