Neoprene leveling studs on a G4003 stand a good idea?

I personally would build a frame of tube steel and only use a total of 4 leveler legs. In a million years, you'll never get 8 pads adjusted to get the lathe to align properly.

BTW: There are many threads here discussing how to build a lathe table or bench frame then, align a lathe (and it has little to do with making it level).


You're on the right track as far as sizing is concerned. If the lathe weighs 1000 lbs, you should probably divide by 4 and add a 25% overhead margin -but don't go overboard.


Ray
 
Maybe this falls under the "you did it wrong, you dope" type of thing, but I put a set of those under my G0704 mill (on an extended base), and is not steady at all (most noticeable when I'm running the Z hand-wheel.)

I haven't bothered to remove them yet, but at least for a mill I don't care for them. On the other hand, I used solid-surface feet on my lathe stand, and it's a rock. One of these days I'll either remove the stand I built or replace the feet. Maybe a wide footprint of a lathe would make a difference, but I don't regret the solid feet I went with.

-Ryan
 
Ray,
I do have in mind making a steel stand to mount it on. Sure would make things much nicer, thats for sure! For now, I will mount on the Grizzly bench and just use the leveling legs with it. I have my cousin working on getting a 1/4" plate cut for the top of the bench and he is pricing me some 2"x2"x1/4" square tubing. With my limited time, my bench project looks like a fall/winter thing. I want to turn chips yesterday! LOL
 
On my G0750G lathe (which is close to the same weight) I went with 8 of the next size up. The main reason was that I had 3/4" holes in the stand so I went with the 1/2" shank mounts rather than the 3/8" shank mounts you're talking about. So far, it's OK. But I'm not turning big stuff where the vibration could get to be an issue.

On another thread, I saw a guy with a PM1236 who put 4 of the neoprene leveling mounts on the outer 4 corners and then added solid pads that he made on the other 4 positions. He said that worked well. I may do that in the future.

See http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php/11475-My-PM1236
 
How fortuitous that this thread happens to exist... It shows a bench that I put together that has a leveling mechanism built into it. The thread also has pointers to other threads that cover how to align a lathe. I went through a little learning process on this so, it's best to read from the beginning to end as I eventually got it right...

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/show...Yet-Another-Lathe-Bench)/page2?highlight=YALB

I hear you on wanting to make chips and there's no reason you can't start now. It's OK to use a lathe as long as it's not grossly misaligned. You won't be able to cut perfect shafts until is well aligned but, all things in time...



Ray





ridgeway said:
Ray,
I do have in mind making a steel stand to mount it on. Sure would make things much nicer, thats for sure! For now, I will mount on the Grizzly bench and just use the leveling legs with it. I have my cousin working on getting a 1/4" plate cut for the top of the bench and he is pricing me some 2"x2"x1/4" square tubing. With my limited time, my bench project looks like a fall/winter thing. I want to turn chips yesterday! LOL
Click to expand...
 
Smudgemo said:
Maybe this falls under the "you did it wrong, you dope" type of thing, but I put a set of those under my G0704 mill (on an extended base), and is not steady at all (most noticeable when I'm running the Z hand-wheel.)

I haven't bothered to remove them yet, but at least for a mill I don't care for them.
Click to expand...

I know it's off-topic, but I have to chime in... I did exactly the same thing - and *hated* them on the mill. They were much worse than just having the mill sit on the floor with a few flat washers under it to 'level' it out. I quickly removed them and went with concrete mounting studs - a *much* better solution (for the mill) IMO.
 
I put 8 of the 800lb rubber feet under my G4003G. Alignment kept shifting and I could shake the machine with one hand. I ended up making the feet out of steel. Problem solved.

DSC_0259.JPG
 
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