I need to share this. This evening, Bruce Thom of BAT Machine came by the shop to help us with our new lathe. For those of you who don't know, Bruce and his brother Daryle (the Brothers BAT) are exceptional gentlemen.
We recently received out new Kingston HJ-1100 and got it in place. This meant moving the PM1440GT that I have been using, reconfiguring the flush, setting up flush on the Kingston, wiring a bunch of stuff, and leveling two lathes.
So I have leveled lathes three times. My PM1340 at home in two different locations, and the PM1440GT at work. The way I did it was to use a .0002" accuracy 8" level and continually adjust the head, then tail, back and forth until everything leveled out. It took about 3 hours and my knees and back would ache when I was done. But my lathe would be level.
Enter Bruce Thom the master machinist. He said you have to let he lathe settle into place. So you adjust the head so it's level (with the level across the ways) then the tail. When you go back and check the head it will be out. That means you wait a bit for the metal to settle before adjusting.
Doing it this way is much easier than how I was doing it. He then said to check it frequently over the next few months until settles down, and the check it periodically after that.
All you long time machinists are laughing and saying "No Duh!" Well, I tried to find a manual machining course when I got my own lathe five years ago, and the only thing I could find was CNC machining. So this is a new thing for me.
I always wondered why leveling one end would unlevel the other end for a while. Now I know.....
We recently received out new Kingston HJ-1100 and got it in place. This meant moving the PM1440GT that I have been using, reconfiguring the flush, setting up flush on the Kingston, wiring a bunch of stuff, and leveling two lathes.
So I have leveled lathes three times. My PM1340 at home in two different locations, and the PM1440GT at work. The way I did it was to use a .0002" accuracy 8" level and continually adjust the head, then tail, back and forth until everything leveled out. It took about 3 hours and my knees and back would ache when I was done. But my lathe would be level.
Enter Bruce Thom the master machinist. He said you have to let he lathe settle into place. So you adjust the head so it's level (with the level across the ways) then the tail. When you go back and check the head it will be out. That means you wait a bit for the metal to settle before adjusting.
Doing it this way is much easier than how I was doing it. He then said to check it frequently over the next few months until settles down, and the check it periodically after that.
All you long time machinists are laughing and saying "No Duh!" Well, I tried to find a manual machining course when I got my own lathe five years ago, and the only thing I could find was CNC machining. So this is a new thing for me.
I always wondered why leveling one end would unlevel the other end for a while. Now I know.....
