Lathe Leveling feet

[jareese]

I've been working on leveling my lathe as I wait for replacement parts. My garage floor is horrible, especially RIGHT where I have my lathe of course. I have the orange cast iron feet epoxied to 1/2" by 3" flat square steel for risers. I'm needing a little more height on some, or a better way to do this.
I had ordered some leveling casters from Amazon, but they would not be able to turn in the small space provided for the feet as it is raised up from the bottom of the machine stand. (see pic)
As I don't have all my parts yet, I can't turn anything to make some feet, yet. I am using the standard supplied bolts that came with the machine. (not as shown in pic)

I will be trying to take some measurements to see what height each foot would need to be to get close to level, then finish with the adjustment bolts.

Currently the tail end WAS totally off the ground with only the 4 headstock bolts in contact. The headstock end of the bed is level, the tailstock has some pretty heavy twist.

Does anyone have any suggestions?


***EDIT - please read***

Ok. A lot of you seem to be missing my point as you’re focusing on the word “caster”
My goal was ease of leveling the machine, not moving it. I had thought of using them to move it less than 2 feet in the beginning, but found that I could use some machine lifts from a friend and used them instead.

My interest lies in finding a way to level my machine. Not talk about casters.

Thanks for getting back on topic.

Adding to original post as well.

 

[MrWhoopee]

The only thing I can offer is get some support under the tailstock end while you're figuring it out. Leaving it hanging in space like that is not going to help.

 

[jareese]

The only thing I can offer is get some support under the tailstock end while you're figuring it out. Leaving it hanging in space like that is not going to help.

sorry, I should have said I have it touching the feet after that. I'll edit my post.

 

[G-ManBart]

Ballpark how much height do you think you need to fill on the tailstock end? Put another way, roughly how thick do you think the pads need to be? Half an inch, two inches....just ballpark.

 

[jareese]

Ballpark how much height do you think you need to fill on the tailstock end? Put another way, roughly how thick do you think the pads need to be? Half an inch, two inches....just ballpark.

I'll be measuring tonight. I'm going to try and get a measurement to "level" on/to each adjustment point. Then try and figure what I'll need for overall height.
I'll measure what the pads and my 1/2" thick steel comes out to as well.. This floor REALLY sucks.

 

[WobblyHand]

I don't recall how broken things are. Can you use the lathe at all? If so, you could make the pads? If it's inop, please disregard.

I have an old lime cement floor in my basement - I can truly sympathize with a sucky floor. I used those leveling casters for my work bench and ran out of adjustment. And those dinky wheels are no good on a rough floor. They won't roll. They only work on a super hard level crack free surface. Basically, wasted my money on the casters.

 

[jareese]

I don't recall how broken things are. Can you use the lathe at all? If so, you could make the pads? If it's inop, please disregard.

I have an old lime cement floor in my basement - I can truly sympathize with a sucky floor. I used those leveling casters for my work bench and ran out of adjustment. And those dinky wheels are no good on a rough floor. They won't roll. They only work on a super hard level crack free surface. Basically, wasted my money on the casters.

No, I don't have a saddle for the cross-slide yet unfortunately. Leadscrew and other things found more recently will be here first - possibly by the end of April? The saddle and original items may be another month or two.

I purchased the leveling casters from Amazon, so the return was painless thankfully.

 

[WobblyHand]

No, I don't have a saddle for the cross-slide yet unfortunately. Leadscrew and other things found more recently will be here first - possibly by the end of April? The saddle and original items may be another month or two.

I purchased the leveling casters from Amazon, so the return was painless thankfully.

Need the saddle to do much of anything.
Hope your parts show up soon. Must be hard looking at your lathe and not being able to use it.

 

[jareese]

Need the saddle to do much of anything.
Hope your parts show up soon. Must be hard looking at your lathe and not being able to use it.

its getting there

 

[1Bender]

Only pic I currently have of it but I can take some more if you’d like…when I built my welding table I capped the bottom of the legs but I drilled a hole in the cap and welded a nut to the inside of the cap then welded the cap into place…I then welded a bolt to a set of casters that I’d been tripping over in my shop for far too long…yea the casters are overkill and I need to do something with the flanges for appearances but I can level my table by threading the bolt in or out…total cost was a bit of my time cause I had everything on hand…if I needed a whole bunch of extra length I’d put a piece of all thread into it…granted I know I’m talking about a table and your talking about a lathe on a table (at least that’s what I got from it) but you level the top and the lathe is automatically level…