Casters on a lathe

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abunai

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Because I don't have much space, I have my lathe on 4 casters. Metal wheels.
I want to replace them with larger wheeled ones.
It has 3" wheels now, I was hoping to get some 4" or larger.
I was thinking of adding 2 more casters in the middle hoping to make it easier to roll around.
Any thoughts on this???????
I also have an old Sheldon that I saved from junk.
I took it all apart for transport.
I was thinking of doing the same on it also. When I get around to it.
 
A lathe is one of the few machines that should be leveled with a precision level. From a practical standpoint, for less than very precise work, it likely won't matter. I'm just sayin..............Bob
 
I have mine on a metal frame with leveling castors. For me it will be movable if necessary, but will be leveled, shimmed as needed in place until I have to move it. Kinda semi permanent.
 
Yes a lathe needs to be precision leveled and "dialed in" for ultimate accuracy but for most non critical use, moving the lathe around on casters would probably not cause drastic issues.
 
Some small lathes have a three point bearing on their bases so that leveling would not be an issue, but having said that, leveling is VERY important for most lathes if accurate work is to be accomplished; if not accurately leveled, a lathe will not cut straight and will face convex or concave.
 
Bed length and rigidity of the base are very important. Not having access to a precision level, I just did a rough level on my Heavy 10 with a carpenter's level. It's a 4 ft. bed on a cabinet base and cuts .0003 taper over 14 in. Close enough for the kind of work I'm doing.

Extra casters in the middle will give you more load capacity, but, unless they are bigger than the ones at the end (not desirable on a lathe), they make it harder to manuever. I have a heavy tooling cabinet with 6 casters, it's a pain to move around.
 
Bed length and rigidity of the base are very important. Not having access to a precision level, I just did a rough level on my Heavy 10 with a carpenter's level. It's a 4 ft. bed on a cabinet base and cuts .0003 taper over 14 in. Close enough for the kind of work I'm doing.

Extra casters in the middle will give you more load capacity, but, unless they are bigger than the ones at the end (not desirable on a lathe), they make it harder to manuever. I have a heavy tooling cabinet with 6 casters, it's a pain to move around.
I would suspect that the .0003 of taper that you refer to is when the work is supported by the tailstock center; I'm talking about chucking work, which world be unsupported.
 
The 'leveling' requirement of a lathe is having the bed free of twist. That's it.

There is no requirement for it to be aligned to earth's core. If that were the case, lathes on-board Navy vessels wouldn't work. ;)

When I had my SB lathe and PM25 on 40" toolboxes, I made sure the left and right ends of the lathe bed were in-plane, and that's it. Worked just fine for the barrel work I did for my pistols. Accurate too.
 
For the kind of work I do on it, it's not that critical.
Being able to move it around is more important.
Wish I had the space to just leave it in one place.
I've never had something heavy on 6 wheels.
I would think it would be easier to move around.
Is that correct????
 
The 'leveling' requirement of a lathe is having the bed free of twist. That's it.

That's correct.
The precision level establishes a datum or reference point so the entire bed can be aligned with that point. Within reason the lathe won't mind if it's not perpendicular to the Earth's center as long as the bed is free of twist or bow..............Bob
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