- Joined
- Sep 29, 2013
- Messages
- 130
Hi all. I am having a problem aligning my lathe. It appears to me that the lathe bed has a high spot in the middle that I cannot level out. I would appreciate any suggestions.
I didn't want to raise the height of the lathe so I riveted 2"x3/8" aluminum angle to the sides of the stands and bolted them to my concrete slab. I used 3/16" stainless rivets that have a shear strength 1170 lbs. There are 8 "Red Head" Drop-In concrete anchors, one in each stand corner and 3/8"-16 nuts for height adjustment. It remains to be seen how well they hold up over time. Hopefully they will work.
After a lot of reading on this forum, I decided to use a machinist level and then do the 2-collar test. It seemed the recommendation by Richard King to put the machinist level on the cross slide would be better than using 123 blocks or parallels on the ways. Below is the level and 2-collar setup I used.
Now on to the problem.
Using the leveling nuts on the bottom of the stands, I first leveled the head stock end, then leveled the tail stock end. When I moved the level to the center of the lathe, the right way was at least 1 division too high. I tried to get the bed level at the HS, TS, and center all at the same time but wasn't able to.
Next I got as close as I could and performed the 2-collar test to see what would happen. If you click on the image below, you can see the results from several tests.
So my first question is, is there anything I can do to eliminate the high spot in the middle? When the lathe arrived, the bolt holding the tail stock end to the pallet had fallen out and the lathe could pivot around the head stock on the pallet. Also, the bolt fell out of the tail stock and it was free to move on the bed ways. Could the bed have been damaged due to these problems?
Since the 2-collar test shows least 0.001" out of alignment, do I need to align the head stock with the ways? Where should I level the lathe before changing the head stock alignment? Finally, this is my first lathe alignment. I may very well be doing something wrong. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Bob J
I didn't want to raise the height of the lathe so I riveted 2"x3/8" aluminum angle to the sides of the stands and bolted them to my concrete slab. I used 3/16" stainless rivets that have a shear strength 1170 lbs. There are 8 "Red Head" Drop-In concrete anchors, one in each stand corner and 3/8"-16 nuts for height adjustment. It remains to be seen how well they hold up over time. Hopefully they will work.
After a lot of reading on this forum, I decided to use a machinist level and then do the 2-collar test. It seemed the recommendation by Richard King to put the machinist level on the cross slide would be better than using 123 blocks or parallels on the ways. Below is the level and 2-collar setup I used.
Now on to the problem.
Using the leveling nuts on the bottom of the stands, I first leveled the head stock end, then leveled the tail stock end. When I moved the level to the center of the lathe, the right way was at least 1 division too high. I tried to get the bed level at the HS, TS, and center all at the same time but wasn't able to.
Next I got as close as I could and performed the 2-collar test to see what would happen. If you click on the image below, you can see the results from several tests.
So my first question is, is there anything I can do to eliminate the high spot in the middle? When the lathe arrived, the bolt holding the tail stock end to the pallet had fallen out and the lathe could pivot around the head stock on the pallet. Also, the bolt fell out of the tail stock and it was free to move on the bed ways. Could the bed have been damaged due to these problems?
Since the 2-collar test shows least 0.001" out of alignment, do I need to align the head stock with the ways? Where should I level the lathe before changing the head stock alignment? Finally, this is my first lathe alignment. I may very well be doing something wrong. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Bob J