Epoxy granite or mineral casting

[Jonathan]

I love it when practical experience makes a mockery of the theorists

It's a case of different objectives - I think what the 'theorists' are mainly discussing is a more demanding application than what mike has found out about.
I think the difference is that in the long thread on CNCzone they are (or were) trying to find a resin/aggregate mixture that would when set leave a surface smooth, accurate and stable enough to mount the linear rails directly to it, hence the suggestion of using a flame to remove bubbles. However if you're just making a base or frame with it and embed steel strips, or other means, to mount the rails, that can subsequently be machined or adjusted to obtain the required accuracy then you can get away with all sorts of things. There are quite a few examples of where people have not used fancy resin etc on their machine and got good results, such as this one.