Advice on lathe for home shop

Thanks I like his videos, I’ll be watching that and hopefully sorting out my taper.
 
I happened to stubble upon his videos while looking up info for my old Leblond. His videos helped me set my lathe up and his other videos are also interesting to watch. He has a Wilton 800 vise I envy.
 
GSweldmech said:
All I have are standard hardware store type levels, I’ve read some stuff on line that say those are sufficient to level that machine and others that say you have to have a machinist level. I’d love to hear what folks have to say on that topic.
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Ultimately the final level is determined by how the lathe cuts so it is possible to level it without a machinist level, just a lot more work. I've even seen a video where a plumb bob was used to do the initial levelling. A machinist level is significantly more sensitive so it will get you much closer to level saving you time.

To give you some idea of the difference between a standard carpenters level and a machinists level, I did my initial levelling with a digital level which is more precise than a regular bubble level. I had the bed reading a perfect zero on that level. When I was able to borrow a machinist level and put it on the lathe, it was off the scale so far it took some adjustment before the bubble even started to move.
 
I’ve been looking at machinist levels on eBay etc. there’s the starret levels that I’d love to have but are pretty expensive for something I’d use so infrequently and the offshore levels that are much more reasonably priced and look exactly the same no matter who is selling them. Are the import levels satisfactory to level a lathe? I have to think that they have to be accurate enough for my needs but I’ve never used one; does anyone have any knowledge of the import machinist levels?
 
I went through the leveling process with my Pacemaker a few weeks ago. Generally speaking, get it as level as you can with whatever level(s) you have. Then do a two collar test to see where you are at. Once you have that done, then turn a longer shaft with your tailstock to see how your tailstock alignment is.

This is a great video for the two collar test.
 
From my research a machinist level is more important if your lathe is new and has no wear. On a used lathe getting close is good enough and then you add some twist to the bed to account for wear while doing the two collar test.
 
I spent a few minutes trying to get it more level this evening and as I feared the floor under the lathe is as irregular as the rest of the shop. The builder set the shop up with 8 floor drains to allow him to hose down his excavation equipment inside during the winter and there are swales leading towards the drains from all over the shop. Im running out of travel on the leveling bolts before I get close. I’m gonna have to use a Johnson bar to lift the corners to slide steel plates under the machine. I’ll get back after it tomorrow.
 
Level on a lathe is not critical. Square and solid are what really matters.
 
So I’ve been chasing things down on the lathe. I found that the apron was leaking oil out via a blown seal on the carriage feed lever that I had to reverse engineer from ideas gathered on the inter webs. this led to a tear down of the carriage for a thorough cleaning. I’ve now had the feed gear box , the head stock / spindle and the apron opened , inspected and cleaned up and reassembled. I made some new felt way wipers for the carriage while i was at it. I’m glad I did all this as I’m now confident that everything is in good condition and there aren’t any surprises in store for me in the near future.

today I got back to the leveling and dialing in of the lathe . I’ve got down so that it’s about .002 larger on the head stock end . I got it to cut better than that a couple times but each time I got this resonance coming from the cabinet on the tail stock end and each time I found it was because the tail stock end operator side (front) for was off the ground. I had been adjusting the tail stock rear side adjusting foot to be longer and seeing improved taper numbers but each time I got down to .002 or there abouts going one adjustment further then lifts the front foot off the ground. I’m not sure how good the taper accuracy on this machine was when it was new but given that I’m guessing this is a 1975 ish machine I’m thinking .002 isn’t all that bad. One thing I am thinking might work is shimming under the mounting points where the bed fastens to the chip tray and cabinet, in theory that should allow the feet to stay firmly on the ground and then allow a little more twist to go into the ways to correct the taper a little more than I’ve been able to using just the feet. Any suggestions on whether there is much more accuracy left in this lathe and how I might go about getting there?
 
GSweldmech said:
So I’ve been chasing things down on the lathe. I found that the apron was leaking oil out via a blown seal on the carriage feed lever that I had to reverse engineer from ideas gathered on the inter webs. this led to a tear down of the carriage for a thorough cleaning. I’ve now had the feed gear box , the head stock / spindle and the apron opened , inspected and cleaned up and reassembled. I made some new felt way wipers for the carriage while i was at it. I’m glad I did all this as I’m now confident that everything is in good condition and there aren’t any surprises in store for me in the near future.

today I got back to the leveling and dialing in of the lathe . I’ve got down so that it’s about .002 larger on the head stock end . I got it to cut better than that a couple times but each time I got this resonance coming from the cabinet on the tail stock end and each time I found it was because the tail stock end operator side (front) for was off the ground. I had been adjusting the tail stock rear side adjusting foot to be longer and seeing improved taper numbers but each time I got down to .002 or there abouts going one adjustment further then lifts the front foot off the ground. I’m not sure how good the taper accuracy on this machine was when it was new but given that I’m guessing this is a 1975 ish machine I’m thinking .002 isn’t all that bad. One thing I am thinking might work is shimming under the mounting points where the bed fastens to the chip tray and cabinet, in theory that should allow the feet to stay firmly on the ground and then allow a little more twist to go into the ways to correct the taper a little more than I’ve been able to using just the feet. Any suggestions on whether there is much more accuracy left in this lathe and how I might go about getting there?
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You should be able to get it better than .002”. What was the distance between the 2 points that you measured to get your .002 measurement? About your front foot lifting off of the ground. I’ve ran into similar problems on my monarch 18cbb when I first got it. If the lathe has sat for a long time way out of level it will pick up a bit of a set. Just leave the front foot off of the ground and let it set that way for at least a day or two. It should settle back down in time. I was able to get my monarch down to less than .0002” taper over 16”. My monarch was built in 1942 so it’s got some years on it.
 
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