Poor man’s machine footings

[Choiliefan]

I was pretty close to ground zero when the '94 Northridge earthquake hit.
My 15" lathe walked a few inches through the garage door.
It was leveled on bolt heads without pads though.

 

[Jay-z]

Have you ever thought about using hockey pucks as feet? They work great and are very cheap.

 

[Choiliefan]

Don Rickles would approve.

 

[ThinWoodsman]

At the risk of hijacking this thread a bit, did you use that bottle jack to hoist the machines up?

Been considering adding levelling feet to my bridgeport and 14x40, but do not have a hoist and the prospect of using wedges is a bit daunting considering the 3" or so the machine has to be raised.

 

[Tozguy]

think i’ll use it like this for a while and see what happens.
You May be right about walking.

The same approach was used on my lathe weighing 1200 lbs and having 8 feet.
My carriage bolts are threaded into the stand but your way should work well too.
The bolt head sits on a washer which sits on a soft aluminum shim for traction on the floor.
The aluminum shim also serves as a feeler gauge to feel tension on the feet.
The aluminum shims are slightly larger than the washers. They are circled with a sharpie so any walking would be easy to detect.
Since the cement floor is very stable I did not want anything soft in the system like a hockey puck or tar paper.
It has proven to be practical. No walking whatsoever after several years of service.

 

[BtoVin83]

Nice lathe!
Company I worked for made "coned valve disks" rubber bonded to a coned piece of metal. I would gather up defective ones every once in a while and I use those. I like to anchor my lathes to the floor for rigidity but sadly the flimsy cabinet doesn't help. My dad had a 60" Tuda that we couldn't get the chatter out of with it bolted to a 10" concrete floor. Cut and dug the floor up and poured 22 yards of concrete in the hole and bolted the lathe to that, worked pretty good after that.

 

[Choiliefan]

A Tuda!
I had a 15X42 which was a wonderful machine.
It had leveling screws in the cast iron base and walked through the garage door in the 94 Northridge quake.

 

[38Bill]

I did hockey puck feet for my PM932. The 932 has four feet and weighs 1100 lbs. Been a year and they still look like new. I milled out part of the center to inset a 3/8" thick washer/plate.

 

[raven7usa]

I also used hockey pucks for my G4003G lathe. Machine does not move around.