Monday, October 1, 2012

Concrete and dowel

This evening I filled my lathe bed with concrete. I said I was going to buy some 10mm dowels and grease them up before putting them into the bolt holes, but that wasn't possible. Because Magnet Mart are so good at stocking usefully sized lumber, I had a choice between 9.5mm and 12.5mm dowel...

Obviously, I chose 9.5mm. The process I used was only marginally more complex than the grease option. I wrapped each dowel (which was cut to just a little longer than the height of the bed) with a small piece of standard printing paper, fastening it with a piece of tape. Then I wrapped each piece with thin plastic packing tape, hopefully preventing the conrete from adhering to it.

The goal of this approach was two-fold: to make up the missing 0.5mm, and to facilitate the removal of the dowels with minimum fuss, ideally without leaving anything but air and concrete behind.

The concrete is curing now, so I'll let you know how it went in a while.