If your Gingery is aluminum then you would be looking at a milled surface. Most aluminums don't grind well.
Either way, Cast Iron or Aluminum, machining does not accertain a flat surface. At the very least you would want to check the machined surface against a surface plate. However there is no doubt that machining the surface will save you time.
The question is this: is it worth it? That really depends upon how flat the surface is to begin with.
As to automotive machine shops, the capability varies widely. Some places install a break lathe and call themselves a machine shop. Others rivial tool and die shops. So who knows, but generally auto machine shops are the cheapest places to get machining work done. A shop that can handle truck and industrial engines will be able to handle larger materials.
One thing to consider is a local machine tool rebuilder. Possibly more expensive but maybe quicker as they may have a machine already set up for machining other machine beds. More so they would understand exactly what your needs are.
Beyound all of the above there are some other issues to consider. One is how would you actually hold the current casting design in a mill but not cause any distortion? Gingery's design is fine for hand work but I'd have to say less than optimal to run through a mill. Another thing to realize is that castings have stress in them. Rush a fresh casting to a machine shop to be machined and there is no assurance that three months later the machined surface will be flat. In fact old machine tool manufactures use to throw their iron castings outside in the back yard to season over the winter. Aluminum is of course a different material entirely so consider this issue as something that might require more study.
As to shop charges I don't think you will be happy. I can't say as it has been a very long time since having anything done but I can't imagine it would be cheap as most likely it would require the auto machinist to do odd setup work.
David A Frantz
websterindustro@mac.com
Sent from my iPhone.
On Oct 16, 2010, at 9:29 AM, regrex101 <mujydec02@sneakemail.com> wrote:
> Forgive me if this has been asked before, (I searched for "machine shop" and "surface grinder" already), but would it be feasible to send your assembled gingery lathe bed out to an auto machine shop for a little surface grinding?
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> I would think that they do these types of jobs all the time, but I assume if it's feasible someone else would have thought of it already. It seems the bed may be a wee bit bigger than your standard four-banger head, but surely the shop also does straght six diesels too.
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> If doable, how much of the finish bed scraping would I miss? What would be a reasonable shop charge?
>
> TIA,
>
> Mark
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