Need advice on attaching lathe leveling feet

[mjr350]

I've made up 6 feet out of 50mm round bar with a recessed buttom and a 14.5mm (10mm deep) hole in the top to accept the 9/16" bolts that I have on hand.
My question is what is the best way of attaching them to the bottom of my lathe because the existing holes are not threaded.
Is nuts and washers each side of the mounting point with the bolt just sitting in the hole going to be enough or is there a different approach?
Lathe roughly weights around 800 to 1000kgs

 

[MyLilMule]

Either nut and washer on the underside, or a heavy plate bolted to the holes and the feet attached to the plate. That's my $0.02 for what it is worth.

 

[Mitch Alsup]

I used metric washer, imperial washer, and a fender washers and a bolt below the lathe footing and another bolt on top.
The bolts on the bottom do the leveling, the bolts on top prevent the lathe from walking out of level.

The 3 kinds of washers spread the load from the inside face of the bolt to the foot where you are making the adjustment.

I don't know why but most of the time metric washers that just fit on (an imperial) bolt are smaller than the corresponding imperial washer. Fender washers are always large, .... using 3 spreads the load.

 

[mjr350]

It's worked out perfectly and no longer rocks around. The hardest part was lifting with a crowbar and placing 5mm shims evey lift. Interestingly there is minimal flex in the bed so hopefully getting everything aligned with an engineers level should be a simple task.