Installing new lathe

[Tom Watson]

I am just about to take delivery of a new Lathe. It is a Hare and Forbes 336D. Comes with DRO, QCTP, lead screw covers . Collant Pump, Light.
I also comes with a stand and brake pedal.
I had my last lathe bolted to my concrete floor.
My question is, should I bolt it down to the floof or just allow it to sit on the floor?
I see things on Youtube where lathes are just sitting on their stands directly on the floor with leveling pads.
I dont want to bolt it down if it is not necessary. Any Ideas?

 

[SmithDoor]

I am just about to take delivery of a new Lathe. It is a Hare and Forbes 336D. Comes with DRO, QCTP, lead screw covers . Collant Pump, Light.
I also comes with a stand and brake pedal.
I had my last lathe bolted to my concrete floor.
My question is, should I bolt it down to the floof or just allow it to sit on the floor?
I see things on Youtube where lathes are just sitting on their stands directly on the floor with leveling pads.
I dont want to bolt it down if it is not necessary. Any Ideas?

You find most do not bolt the lathe down. Just sit on floor and use the lathe.
I like level the the lathe.

Dave

 

[TonyM]

Your lathe is best leveled and bolted down. You can do it without drilling the floor by making some leveling pads which can be stuck to the floor. Commercial ones are readily available if you prefer to buy. Leveling Feet Vibration Absorbing Machine Mount Stand Foot MILLING DRILLING – Red Fox Machinery

 

[Tom Watson]

Your lathe is best leveled and bolted down. You can do it without drilling the floor by making some leveling pads which can be stuck to the floor. Commercial ones are readily available if you prefer to buy. Leveling Feet Vibration Absorbing Machine Mount Stand Foot MILLING DRILLING – Red Fox Machinery

Thanks Tony.

Red Fox are out of stock for the smaller sizes


TW

 

[animal12]

Your lathe has to be setup with no twist in the bed , that may or may not be level to achieve no twist .
animal

 

[clockworkcheval]

I use plain rubber pads of about 10 mm thickness under my machines. Their weight is between 200 kg and 700 kg. I do only light and balanced work.

 

[olympic]

Canadians use hockey pucks for pads.

 

[Tom Watson]

Thanks for all the replys. I think I will invest in some adjustable pads after I see what is on the bottom of the stand.
Lathe is coming tomorrow !! Woo Hoo!!. I have missed having a Lathe as I sold my old one a few months ago. I also purchased an engine crane so I can move the thing by myself. I am almost 80 and cant do much heavy work. I am also
thinking of a small hoist to lift the chucks on and off. and any heavy work.
Tom

 

[william_b_noble]

I have a 1200 pound lathe and a 3500 pound mill in my garage, they sit in 1/4 inch (10mm) thick cold rolled steel, , I think I used 6 inch squares. Each pad has a. O10 inch deep recess in the center to hold the machine's foot. The pad spreads the forces out to protect the concrete floor. This has worked for me for decades.

I leveled the lathe using a master machinist level, adjusting feet at both ends until it was as perfect as I could read the level. From memory, the graduations on the level are .005 per foot. Vis, the polish company, makes good levels. Borrow or buy used. A carpenter's level is ov no use for this specific purpose

 

[terryd]

Your lathe has to be setup with no twist in the bed , that may or may not be level to achieve no twist .
animal

Hi Tom,

I don't know your lathe, dimensions, weight etc but my Boxford BUD which weighs aroung 270kg (approx. 600 pounds) plus tooling, chucks, steadies etc is not bolted down or accurately 'levelled' just shimmed to take out inaccuracy in the concrets floor. The latter i.e. levelling is not necessary, ships engineers use lathes in their workshops at sea all the time, try levelling one of those in mid ocean. What is necessary - as has been pointed out - is that there is no twist in the bed which will cause the lathe to turn tapers. This is overcome by shimming the feet of the lathe on the cabinet normally at the lightest, i.e. tailstock end, the cabinet is a very strong and rigid structure and very resistant to twist. There are simple ways of checking and correcting any twist in the bed and lots of examples on how to do this on the internet just search for "correcting lathe bed twist"or similar.

TerryD

 

[dazz]

I have a Denford Viceroy and a much larger Nardini lathe. The lighter Denford sits on threaded rubber pads because it was too low for me.
The heavier Nardini sits on 25mm dia threaded steel feet straight onto the concrete. No damage to the concrete. No vibration into the house through the floor.

Getting the lathe level is not important.
Getting the twist out of a lathe is important. Twist adds a taper.
You can check for twist using a laser builders level:
1.Lay the level across the bed at one end with the laser point a long way on a solid object. I use my boundary fence which is about 20m from the lathe.
2.Mark the laser point (on the fence in my case)
3.Lay the level across the other end of the lathe with the laser point on the mark.
If the bed is twisted, the mark and the laser won't be in the same spot.

It doesn't matter how cheap and nasty the level and laser are, this method will work. If you don't have a level, just put a laser pointer on the cross slide and move it from one end of the bed to the other.

My Denford lathe sits on three mounting points on the stand. Twist is not adjustable.

 

[Old Guy]

The lathe I bought recently was second hand but virtually brand new, it came on it's own stand which were basically two pressed steel cabinets with two pressed steel plates to fasten the two cabinets together, these cabinets had an elongated hole in the top of each one, there are two mounting holes in the centre of the head stock and one in the centre of the tail stockout I doubt very much that the cabinets would be anywhere near strong enough to correct any twist in the lathe bed which makes one think that the selling company must be pretty confident that the lathe bed is perfectly true and without twist WHO KNOWS? It is now mounted on a very strongly built wooden bench but I haven't done any real taper testing yet so I don't know how good or bad it will be in this regard

 

[Tom Watson]

I have started to open the boxes of the new lathe. The cabinets (one on each end) are made from at least 6mm steel and very heavy,
I have a friend coming over tomorrow to help assemble all the stuff. I also have to assemble the engine crane. I think I will just mount the cabinets
straight on the floor it is a very smooth and level concrete floor. Mount the lathe on the stamd and do the tests to check for twists. I will probably use it for a while to let it all settle in and then test again. I can shim the lathe feet from the stands to correcty any twist I find then. If I find a lot of vibratiion, (I dont expect any from a new lathe), I will investigate the use of leveling pads or just some strong rubber under the stand bottoms.
This is a beautiful machine and I cant wait to make some chips.

TW

 

[Old Guy]

Best of luck I hope every thing goes well for you on your build the cabinets on my lathe are nowhere near as strong as that probably 1mm max

 

[terryd]

I have a Denford Viceroy and a much larger Nardini lathe. The lighter Denford sits on threaded rubber pads because it was too low for me.
The heavier Nardini sits on 25mm dia threaded steel feet straight onto the concrete. No damage to the concrete. No vibration into the house through the floor.

Getting the lathe level is not important.
Getting the twist out of a lathe is important. Twist adds a taper.
You can check for twist using a laser builders level:
1.Lay the level across the bed at one end with the laser point a long way on a solid object. I use my boundary fence which is about 20m from the lathe.
2.Mark the laser point (on the fence in my case)
3.Lay the level across the other end of the lathe with the laser point on the mark.
If the bed is twisted, the mark and the laser won't be in the same spot.

Hi Dazz,

One needs to be careful laying a level across the bed of the lathe if it has triangular ways like the Boxford A,B or C etc (Southbend 5?) as the tops of the wayts at those points are not machined just lightly dressed as they are not bearing surfaces it is not worth the expense of accurate machining. That means that there may be a slight diffence in relative heights which could make the laser inaccurate using two different points on the ways. In this situation you need to use accurate pair of parallels on the flat portions of the ways to raise your level clear.

Twist is best checked and adjusted by turning a longish bar (say 25mm dia x 250 mm out from the chuck) without tailstock support. Just take a light cut along the bar and measure at two extreme points this will indicate any twist as the extreme outer end will be larger or smaller if twist is present, if perfect, thank your lucky stars and have a large glass of whatever you like to celebrate!

If the outer end is larger the bed is twisted towards you at the tailstock so the tailstock foot needs shimming at the front, if the taper is smaller away from the chuck then the bed is twisted away from you the shim needs to be at the rear of the tailstock foot. then retest and repeat until you get an acceptable reading, it doesn't take long. I should say that with my lathe I use a simple scissor (car) jack between czbinet and bed to raise the tailstock end by a few thou (US - mil?) to make it easy to slip the shims under as required.

TerryD

 

[TonySteamHobby]

I was just thinking about starting a tread to ask a similar question, I hope I’m not too far off base…
I would like to raise my Grizzly 0704 mill, with stand, to a better eye height and then bolt it, I think, to the floor, perhaps 6”.
the floor is uneven. Any ideas?

 

[terryd]

I was just thinking about starting a tread to ask a similar question, I hope I’m not too far off base…
I would like to raise my Grizzly 0704 mill, with stand, to a better eye height and then bolt it, I think, to the floor, perhaps 6”.
the floor is uneven. Any ideas?

Hi Toby
May I suggest a couple of lengths of a good hardwood, say 5" square section placed under the machine from side to side. at front and rear. These could be packed to achieve a reasonable level, and then bolted to the floor, the machine would then be bolted to those.

The reason I suggest that is that the milling machine process tends to cause vibration and timber such as elm helps to absorb that vibration plus it is easy to restore the original floor if you move the machine as there is little damage. In the early 70s I was involved with a company who were removing old very large steam operated drop forges and of course when in use these had a huge hammering effect over the 120 years or so of their use. When we removed the drop forges we found that they had been bedded upon huge elm baulks about 2'-6" square in cross section which were still in reasonable condition.

TerryD

 

[clockworkcheval]

Additional considerations for me in mounting the machines are working height, tooling storage and transport. As good working height standing straight up I target a sightline of 15 degrees down from the horizontal. I use U-beams to raise the heavier machines (on average 300 mm), and I weld frames around standard kitchen cabinets for tabletop machines. Pictures are 1) of my Schaublin 102 VM lathe of about 600 kilo with U-beams, and soft engine-shocks because I had it for some time in the house 2) my Aciera F3 mill of about 500 kilo with U-beams with room for a transport trolley 3) my Wabeco F1200 mill on welded frame of 50 mm square tubing and kitchen cabinet also with room for transport trolley.

 

[ShopShoe]

Well Done! I like your steel and kitchen cabinet approach.

--ShopShoe

 

[ShopShoe]

FYI

Something I read on this forum, or another one a few years back.

If you are anchoring to a concrete floor poured on the ground, you can drill completely through the slab for your anchors so that if you no longer need the anchor bolts you can pound them down below the slab and fill the holes later.

I did not know this and when I got rid of my old vertical air compressor I was left with the anchors and just had to grind them flush with the floor and leave them there.

--ShopShoe