Raising equipment

[Mayhem]

When I move my lathe to my home shop, I want to raise the height of it, as stooping down to operate it is giving my back grief.

For those of you who haven't see her, she's a big old girl:




I'd probably look to raise her at least 4" (100mm). I've seen people using comercially made elevating feet but I'm not sure about having just 8 contact points. Other methods I've seen is making a riser out of steel (c-channel, h-beam or box), or pouring a concrete pad on top of the existing floor.

Your thoughts and comments please...

You can read more about my lathe HERE

[awemawson]

Weld up some channel section with the open part of the channel 'outwards', made to the dimensions of the two bases. Drill holes to correspond with the hold down ones in the base, and repeat them on the floor side so you can fix her down if you need to. Bolt them to the lathe and you are good to go.

Andrew

[stevec]

Darren, I'm with ya on stooping over to work on the lathe. I sometimes wonder how Doubleboost does it, he's either quite tall or his lathe is very low.
Both my lathe centre lines are 47" from the floor.
Here's a pic of the channel base for my 16" x 60".

   

It came in handy for my move back in '09

   

also as the mill

   

[f350ca]

Why do they build lathes that low? My Summit with its wide apron kills my back after a while, have often thought of raising it, never thought of a steel riser though.

[haroldmulder]

Being 6' 5" tall I know what you're going through. I had to raise my Van Norman #10 Mill as well. On that one I just used a pair of 6by6 timber under the Mill base. My Hardinge Lathe is not as bad and it is raised a couple of inches due to placing it on a steel channel with three casters at each end. I'm no expert however if you do raise your lathe with either steel channel or timber I would not have something that goes the whole length of the lathe. I think the concern with that would be how level your concrete is over the length of the support. If you have undulations your frame would not sit solid unless it was raised up on leveling feet. Good luck with which ever method you choose.

[stevec]

Harold, the leveling feet I plan for the lathe have been on the "to do" list for years.

[Mayhem]

I shimmed my lathe level with sheet metal shims that I cut from some scrap stock.

I really should measure the hight of the hand wheels and figure out how much hight I need to add. Either that or dig a pit in front of the lathe, which is much easier to adjust!

[Mayhem]

(01-21-2014, 10:36 AM)Mayhem Wrote: ...I really should measure the hight of the hand wheels and figure out how much hight I need to add...

Done:

x-axis handwheel:
- top to ground = 910mm (35.827")
- centre to ground = 825mm (32.480")
z-axis handwheel:
- top to ground = 825mm (32.480")
- centre to ground = 670mm (26.378")
Ways:
- top to ground = 785mm (30.906")

I'm 180cm tall (5'11"), so I think 100mm (4") sounds about right.

[PixMan]

You've run my lathe. How does your posture at your machine now compare with mine?

[Mayhem]

(01-23-2014, 08:54 PM)PixMan Wrote: You've run my lathe. How does your posture at your machine now compare with mine?

I'm more hunched over using mine. It is probably exacerbated by the fact that I have no feeds, so I'm hand cranking all the time.