Is There an Easy Way of Levelling a Rough Bit of Floor?

We level the machine up and run a screed under the feet or pads depending on what the base of your machine is like. They never move and we have had a few machines in place for years Make the screed quite strong 3-1 ratio on silver sand I suppose these days a bit of PVA glue mixed in will be benificial

Hi John

Yes, but not a goose neck wrecking bar. The item in question is about 6 ft (1800 mm) in length and used by waterside workers and those involved in moving heavy machinery, which is how I learned about them. Unfortunately they seem to be known by different names in different jurisdictions.

On the subject of grinding I have found a piece of concrete breeze block (the heavy variety) plus water is very good for flattening small irregularities in a concrete floor. Dipped in water regularities to remove the cuttings they seem to be very efficient (and cheap).

Pero

Michael G...

Teco pads is the name I recall...

George.

Surely the most important principle mentioned so far is to get the machine feet/stands lowered onto beds of slightly compliant material of a type which after a time sets hard. During this stage the machine should not be jacked or interefered with in any way. This allows the whole assembly to adopt its natural stress-free stance, in which it is then rigidly supported. Ideally the feet should then be firmly bolted down through their beds, in effect making the floor slab a structural member, and imparting enormous additional rigidity. Any remaining vibration can then only be due to flexing within the upper structure of the machine or tooling, a completely different problem stemming from the basic design, or setup and maintenance issues.

Ken

As Pero suggested, leveling mounts should be fine for your use, I have them on my Myford 254 and they have been fine for years. Never had a problem with vibration or lathe going out of adjustment either.

.

Thanks, George ... Very close, but not quite the product that I remember.

[unless I missed it when browsing]

Mine was a coil of felt, probably about 3" wide, packed 'wet' in a round tin.

MichaelG.

Wow guys, thanks very much! That's a really good list of practical suggestions. As I have some spare roofing felt in the shed I'll be trying that first. It's easy to do and undo and, best of all, free.

The lathe is a WM280V weighing 210kg. Not sure about the stand but that's hefty too. My engine lift will do up to 250kg at maximum extension and I usually use the 500kg setting. It has no problem with the weight but two fixed wheels and two on castors make for a big turning circle. Getting the lift over the lathe's centre of gravity without fouling the stand is slightly awkward. And with the boom up, there's a real danger of smacking into the fluorescent lighting. Rollers are really tempting!

I'm putting off a workshop reorganisation because of the amount of stuff that will have to be moved and/or unscrewed. When it happens I shall give serious consideration to flattening the whole floor with a machine.

Thanks again,

Dave

Levelling pads? Fine for getting the machine leve,l but surely must be used in conjunction with a "flowable screed " ie, use them to level the machine, and then you need to make up a shutter that is slightly bigger than the footprint of the machine AND slightly higher that the bottom of the base / stand, pour in the screed up to the top of the shutter. That way you have total contact with the bottom of the base /stand, and when set can be bolted down. All my machines have been done the same way. In every industrial machine shop all the machines are grouted in once levelled. [at least the shops ive seen ]. They don't just rely on feet/pads alone. TOTAL contact with the bottom of the base /stand is the name of the game.

Just saying what has worked for me for the last 10 years without the need to screed etc.

My lathe turns very accurately, more than required to produce the Quorne and George Thomas's dividing heads etc.

Just finished the ME Beam engine.

We shouldn't confuse levelling the floor with providing a sound footing for the cabinet.

Neil

210kg is chicken feed. My old Raglan is specced at 3 1/2cwt - so about 180kg. Under is a stand and a drip tray weighing about 80kg. The stand base (about 1/2'' thick and 5'' high, in old money), weighs about another 100kg. That lot is easy to manoeuvre by simply raising it onto a few pipes and rolling it around. I have limited space and raise it with a 600mm pry bar, under one corner initially. The college engineering tech used to move machines weighing a tonne or more by use of a crow bar, if just needing to move them a short distance. No sweat at all.

Quick report. I lifted the lathe this afternoon and put cut-to-size 5mm thick roofing felt underneath. I ran the lathe up immediately to see if padding with the felt had worked. It had - the vibration point had moved up to 530rpm and the amplitude was much reduced. I guess the lathe is still settling because another test this evening showed another improvement.

Fingers crossed that I don't find tomorrow that weight of the lathe has completely squished the felt. At the moment it's looking good.

Thanks again,

Dave

Get some of these adjustable resilient mounts. They are not expensive if you look around. Not only are they adjustable but they also absorb (dampen) a lot of the vibration. When I moved my machine to another location I would simply adjust them to get the table level again. In this case they were a little complicated to fit due to the hollow base of the Bridgeport. That required the spacers to be machined up.

You can just about make out some very similar feet on my Flying Bantam if you look closely. Again, it's a simple matter to adjust them after moving. No need to mess about with screeding, grinders, felt pads etc each time something moves.