Setting up a Clausing lathe on three 4x4s

This has been discussed here before and Goggle will probably give you more info than you would ever need.

Lathes are not leveled to be level, they are leveled to avoid twisting or bowing forces on the bed. As has been pointed out before, shipboard lathes are never level and can cut accurately.

Your 4x4's should work fine. My Taiwanese Jet

1024 is bolted to a beautiful 1" thick Blanchard- ground slab of steel, which is welded to a beefy angle and plate frame. The frame is lag bolted to 4x4 frame sitting on 4 big casters. The lathe cuts just fine.

SNIP

Hey Iggy,

Wood shims?!?!? Why?? And doesn't the lathe have adjustable "feet" already? Lot better than trying to "shim", but even with shims metal is easier.

I have two lathes set on 4X4's with a 4 X 4 X 3/8" steel plate under each of the 6 adjustment bolts, primarily to keep the "feet" from digging a hole in the wood. Works for me. I did it not so much to assist leveling, but to raise things to a convenient working height for me. (Bridgeport is on 6 X 6's) . I did worry that they might "shake-slide", but not so far. Maybe because even the floor and the bottom of the wood structures is fairly level too??

Take care.

Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario.

ps.....I do hope you are going to be as prolific with the lathe as with the welder!!!!!

For that size machine no problem at all, but use the adjustable feet to attain the initial level. Once you have twisted the bed straight, the machine does not have to be level to be accurate. Steve

I do not have adjustable feet on this lathe. I guess, a good lathe project would be to make them.

i

You are letting your wife put her snowy, wet, dripping, salt encrusted, auto in your shop to rust your tools?

Tsk, Tsk,

Wes

Well ... I don't know about his Clausing -- it is larger than my

12x24" one -- but mine has the leveling adjustments as hollow bolts through the legs of the bed casting. Each one has a hex on the top which can be adjusted, a bottom which contacts the chip tray and the pedestals below that, and a hole through it through which a bolt passes to secure the bed, the chip tray and the pedestals together.

The installation instructions say to shim the feet on the floor for a level chip tray, and then to level the bed to that surface. The initial leveling is to keep the pedestals and chip tray from being twisted and to provide a firm surface for the bed leveling feet to work against.

There are three pairs of floor feet. One pair at the tailstock end, and a pair at each end of the the headstock pedestal. The shimming is mostly to keep from having support at the two end foot pairs, and leave the weight of the lathe trying to push the inner pair of feet to the ground.

And also, the leveling of the chip tray is important if you are using coolant -- to keep it from running down to the tailstock end and pouring through under the tailstock foot into the drawers in that pedestal, or from running to the headstock end, and pouring down through that onto the motor and belt pulleys.

There is a drain about halfway between the headstock and tailstock, and you really want this to be the low point. At the headstock end (with the large hole to clear the belts) there are lips turned up in that hole to keep most of the coolant out of the motor. :-)

That may be.

Enjoy, DoN.