1440 HVT2 custom lift base

Pulling the lathe out to cleanup chips behind it will soon get to be a drag. The hardest things to deal with are the long curls that take up a lot of space really quickly. What is on the other side of the wall? Trap door? Under the floor, a chute? A sweep arm to move the chips out under the brake?
 
I put my PM1440GT on casters and when doing so I built the caster mounts to accommodate a new set of lifting feet/bolts. I needed the casters to roll my lathe around a corner, through a tight door and into a tight spot in the basement. They worked great. Also, the electronics are in the back of the stand so being able to roll it out to work on it was attractive. So I can essentially push it near to the back wall. I found that leveling did not take long and if I count the fractional turns on the feet bolts for lowering it onto the casters and putting it back with the same number of fractional turns puts it pretty much back to level (no-twist). Fortunately, I have yet to have an electronics problem so have never had to pull it out for that reason.
 
If I had that lathe, part of my height gain would be putting spacers between the lathe headstock/tailstock getting it up off of the base. Then making a frame to use some kind of tray under it for cuttings. I use AL cookie sheets under PM-1340GT and they have been sufficient. I have 8 rolling casters and 8 fixed jacks, The rolling casters can be retracted and the lathe rests on the fixed jacks. I raised mine 7" but I'm a foot taller than you are.
 
Just a thought, How does raising the lathe affect your use of the foot brake?
 
hotrats said:
Don't have a 1440, but do have a 1236 that I'm fabbing up a custom stand for. Having easy chip removal access is a big consideration. I looked at your, and PM's photos of your lathe. Having to move the lathe for chip removal seems like a poor design - much like the access to the coolant tank was from the back side on my lathe.

Would it be possible to have a sheet metal tray made to slide under the lathe bed, or a opening cut in the face of the front for a 'sliding drawer', to clean out the chips?
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There isn't room between the bottom of the bed and the top of the stand to put a pan like you linked to. But even if it did I probably wouldn't go that route. At some point I may cut a hole in the cross piece below that little shelf and weld in some stuff for a pull out chip tray but that day is a long ways off.

xr650rRider said:
If I had that lathe, part of my height gain would be putting spacers between the lathe headstock/tailstock getting it up off of the base. Then making a frame to use some kind of tray under it for cuttings. I use AL cookie sheets under PM-1340GT and they have been sufficient. I have 8 rolling casters and 8 fixed jacks, The rolling casters can be retracted and the lathe rests on the fixed jacks. I raised mine 7" but I'm a foot taller than you are.
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I really like that idea, but the bolt locations for the lathe bed are under the gearbox and are too long to come out or put longer bolts in without removing the gear box. I'm not interested in tearing the lathe completely apart right now so if that happens it will have to wait.

What's wild is I'm only 5'9" I thought I may have to build a platform for me to stand on to run the machine comfortably. But I'm adding 7.5" of height and a .5" antifatigue mat I stand on to put the cross feed right below my elbow so I don't have to slightly hunker over to work the carriage wheel. guess I'm just proportioned like a cartoon character, lol.

Larry$ said:
Just a thought, How does raising the lathe affect your use of the foot brake?
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It raises the footbrake.... so ill probably have to build an extension for it as well at some point. But honestly I don't even really use it, the motor is VFD controlled so it has braking built in.
 
The way I built my base for PM-1340GT

IMG_3827.jpg
IMG_3829.jpg
 
joeblow65 said:
There isn't room between the bottom of the bed and the top of the stand to put a pan like you linked to. But even if it did I probably wouldn't go that route. At some point I may cut a hole in the cross piece below that little shelf and weld in some stuff for a pull out chip tray but that day is a long ways off.
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I can imagine the first move, clean-out and re-level will trigger that. You could build your base, get it very level, then weld some heavy angle or square tubing between the cabinets front and back low enough for a tray, then cut out the front with a cut-off disc or plasma
 
That is quite the stand! I love it, I'm not sure I'm ballsy enough to weld to my new machine just yet though but I'm quickly warming to the idea. That's exactly the plan, plasma out a big rectangle, weld in some angle, use some amazon sealed bearings for wheels, I HATE the sound of scraping metal, and boom, chip drawer.

But you also have those footmaster casters, why not use those for the leveling as well?
 
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