- Joined
- Dec 7, 2015
- Messages
- 519
I ended up purchasing the adjustable lathe feet that I was asking about in this thread. This weekend I went to mount them and the sad reality hit that the bolt pattern was different! The actual machined surface that is the contact point for the lathe bed to rest on is the proper width though.
You can see the feet fit under the lathe nicely.
My question- is there any particular reason that I shouldn't be able to drill & tap new holes in the lathe bed? Since it's two machined surfaces sitting against each other, the hole alignment should be practically irrelevant as long as the foot is sitting properly under the bed. So if the feet are drilled for a loose clearance and the bed drilled/threaded, wouldn't that work?
I thought it would be possible to just drill out the feet to fit the pattern of the tapped holes in the bottom of the lathe bed, but unfortunately this won't be possible. On the tailstock side, the leveling mechanism would be in the way, and on the headstock side, the foot doesn't have material under the front most bolt locations.
On both the headstock and tailstock sides, I could get the outermost two bolts in just fine. It's the inner bolts that are the problem.
I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. Is drilling/tapping the bed a big deal? Is that a major no-no or something? Beyond the difficulty of drilling the cast iron, I can't really see any reason why it shouldn't work just fine. Am I missing anything?
You can see the feet fit under the lathe nicely.
My question- is there any particular reason that I shouldn't be able to drill & tap new holes in the lathe bed? Since it's two machined surfaces sitting against each other, the hole alignment should be practically irrelevant as long as the foot is sitting properly under the bed. So if the feet are drilled for a loose clearance and the bed drilled/threaded, wouldn't that work?
I thought it would be possible to just drill out the feet to fit the pattern of the tapped holes in the bottom of the lathe bed, but unfortunately this won't be possible. On the tailstock side, the leveling mechanism would be in the way, and on the headstock side, the foot doesn't have material under the front most bolt locations.
On both the headstock and tailstock sides, I could get the outermost two bolts in just fine. It's the inner bolts that are the problem.
I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. Is drilling/tapping the bed a big deal? Is that a major no-no or something? Beyond the difficulty of drilling the cast iron, I can't really see any reason why it shouldn't work just fine. Am I missing anything?