Leveling?

[Hopefuldave]

Quote: DaveH (that one):

I doubt whether there will be any twist in the bed with this lathe.

Ummm, I think there's always *some* twist! CVA got around it pretty well, though - their toolroom lathe had three feet and a massive cast-iron=box cabinet stand, so it was always stable and untwisted - but they recommended levelling, if only so the coolant ran out the drain!

My lathe's about 2 tons, for a fairly small capacity (6-3/4" centre height, 28" between centres) and probably upwards of 1/4 ton is in the base - a 1/4" or more thick cast-iron box, with ground surfaces for the bed to bolt to - but it still needs levelling under the base.

I have a WW2 gunnery clinometer (inherited from my grandad, who set the sights up before they went off to do battle) which reads to a few seconds of angle, without levelling there can still be some twist in the bed - with the clino' on the carriage I can see it can be twisted as much as 15 seconds (about 0.004 degrees) out of true...

Dave H. (the other one)