Imminent PM1340GT arrival

What would you rather do battle against?

  • One horse sized duck

    Votes: 3 50.0%
  • Fifty duck sized horses

    Votes: 3 50.0%

  • Total voters
    6

player0ne

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Feb 28, 2017
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Hi folks, I figured I'd introduce myself since I'm sure I'll be asking many, many questions in the coming months. My name's Jason and I just got a notification from QMT that my lathe ships today. I've done a little bit of gunsmithing, but for all intents and purposes I'm new at this. I ordered a 3PH modified preferred package (swapped the std 3-jaw for a Chandox), along with the typical extras. 4-jaw, DRO, etc.

I'm trying to cover as many bases as I can before it arrives, and do as much right as I can the first time. Mark has already been and continues to be immensely helpful with my VFD & controller project and is a pleasure to work with, but I figured I should share the love with the rest of you.

For delivery day, I found a local yard who can rent me a front loader with forks for $45 an hour. That's pretty much the best I've been able to find. Riggers have quoted me $700 and up! There is about 120' of gravel and soil with a mild incline and a gate halfway in between the street and the garage, so pallet jacks, Egyptian methods, and heavily tipping the driver don't seem too feasible.

Once it's in the garage (probably a weekend or two later), I can uncrate and lift it with an engine hoist when its space is prepared and the stand is ready. This leads me to a question I've been trying to answer since last night, which is, what about leveling feet? Are the bolts it comes with really good enough? This post says that they're an unusual 1/2-12 tpi, has this been confirmed? I can't easily slap on a set of TE-CO's if so. I don't want to design a situation that will require me to take this stuff apart again.

Hindsight being 20/20, if you were going to do this right the first time, what would you do about the feet?
 
Welcome and congratulations on the purchase. I have the same lathe and ordered the feet from Matt (PM) with the purchase. They are large and have rubber vibration isolation feature built-in which is nice. I had to get use to the safety yellow color
IMG_1881.JPG
IMG_1880.JPG
. Here are a few pictures.
 
When my new lathe was delivered to the front driveway, it was in a substantial crate. The crate had to go 100 feet around to the side of the house over asphalt then gravel and into the basement garage. I just towed the crate down the sloped driveway slowly using the car. Once the crate was opposite the garage door it was pulled inside using a come-along. I don't figure that the towing job was any worse than the handling the crate received during shipment. The lathe did not turn out any the worse for wear.

Re the feet, I am not a fan of soft pads under a lathe. Unless there is a known vibration problem to solve, I prefer to have the lathe sitting on the cement floor with solid metal feet.
 
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When I got my PM1340GT a few months ago I was pleasantly surprised to see that it came with 6 solid cast iron feet. They were painted bright orange!...which btw I found really groovy. They worked very nicely with the included leveling bolts.
 
When I got my PM1340GT a few months ago I was pleasantly surprised to see that it came with 6 solid cast iron feet. They were painted bright orange!...which btw I found really groovy. They worked very nicely with the included leveling bolts.


Score!!
 
Suggest you call Matt to get the confirmation you need.
Hi folks, I figured I'd introduce myself . . . . . . . . . . . This leads me to a question I've been trying to answer since last night, which is, what about leveling feet? Are the bolts it comes with really good enough? This post says that they're an unusual 1/2-12 tpi, has this been confirmed? I can't easily slap on a set of TE-CO's if so. I don't want to design a situation that will require me to take this stuff apart again.

Hindsight being 20/20, if you were going to do this right the first time, what would you do about the feet?

Not sure why you don't believe the post you refer to but if you don't, I suggest you call Matt for the confirmation you are seeking.

I would put solid feet on it now and would use the most outboard holes for leveling and stability. It's much easier to do it now so you can chase the Whitworth threads.

Welcome to the forum btw.
 
No worries Alan, I was just trying to find multiple data sources on that detail. I did find a couple more forum posts last night that agreed on chasing the threads with a 1/2-13 tap, so that's the route I'll go.

Thanks for your reply!
 
Hi folks, I figured I'd introduce myself since I'm sure I'll be asking many, many questions in the coming months. My name's Jason and I just got a notification from QMT that my lathe ships today. I've done a little bit of gunsmithing, but for all intents and purposes I'm new at this. I ordered a 3PH modified preferred package (swapped the std 3-jaw for a Chandox), along with the typical extras. 4-jaw, DRO, etc.

I'm trying to cover as many bases as I can before it arrives, and do as much right as I can the first time. Mark has already been and continues to be immensely helpful with my VFD & controller project and is a pleasure to work with, but I figured I should share the love with the rest of you.

For delivery day, I found a local yard who can rent me a front loader with forks for $45 an hour. That's pretty much the best I've been able to find. Riggers have quoted me $700 and up! There is about 120' of gravel and soil with a mild incline and a gate halfway in between the street and the garage, so pallet jacks, Egyptian methods, and heavily tipping the driver don't seem too feasible.

Once it's in the garage (probably a weekend or two later), I can uncrate and lift it with an engine hoist when its space is prepared and the stand is ready. This leads me to a question I've been trying to answer since last night, which is, what about leveling feet? Are the bolts it comes with really good enough? This post says that they're an unusual 1/2-12 tpi, has this been confirmed? I can't easily slap on a set of TE-CO's if so. I don't want to design a situation that will require me to take this stuff apart again.

Hindsight being 20/20, if you were going to do this right the first time, what would you do about the feet?
First, confirm for sure they are 1/2-12 threads. That is very odd on a Taiwanese lathe, but anything is possible. Beyond that, tapping the 12 pitch to 13 pitch and also from 55 degrees rounded apex threads to 60 degree square apex threads, you will not have much metal left for useful threads. I would drill them out to 1/2" (actually 17/32') and install 1/2" threaded feet with appropriate nuts both above and below the cabinet flange, locking them together after leveling. Threads through a sheet metal cabinet should not be trusted, IMO, and they will also interfere with leveling.
 
Yes, they are 1/2-12. Only place in the world where I still see a 1/2-12 thread still being used. (Ive tried to change it, but its one of those things where it was not worth the effort in explaining what they didn't understand) The machines are excellent and I have what really needed changed exactly how we want it, so I left that one alone.
 
Bob, fortunately the stand for the PM lathe is not sheetmetal. The plate for the walls is 4 mm thick and the bars for the levellers are 9 mm plate. There's plenty of metal to chase the threads and fit a TECO style foot on it. Good feet have nuts on them as well. So it all works out quite well.

EDIT: you can see the thickness of the bottom bar in MonkMan's photo above. BTW, Monkman has chosen to put his feet in the holes that are not tapped. The Whitworth holes are the ones with the shiny bolts in them in his photo.
 
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