Build Your Own Concrete CNC Lathe with 3D-Printed Forms

While they aren’t quite as unforgiving as mills, lathes still need to be extremely rigid to turn metal. Normally, that requires tons (often literal tons) of cast iron. But concrete can be a decent substitute when working on a budget. Maxim Kachurovskiy designed a concrete CNC lathe that you can build yourself using 3D-printed forms.

Structurally, concrete is good for this purpose. But concrete lathes are uncommon because concrete is difficult to work with and pour with any kind of precision. Kachurovskiy solved that problem with 3D-printed forms that contain the wet concrete and position hard mounting points in the correct locations.

The concrete serves as the frame of the lathe, but the rest of the parts are fairly conventional. Instead of ways, there are linear rails. The rest, including the spindle, chuck, tailstock, and tool post, are either off-the-shelf parts or custom-machined for the job.

Kachurovskiy provides instructions and BoMs for both a manual version and a CNC version of the lathe. To build the latter, expect to spend around €1,500 ($1,733 USD) plus the cost of the motors and controller. That is pretty affordable for a sturdy CNC lathe with ballscrews.