I have a G4003G set up and running, has been for a couple of months. I had a machinist friend come by to level it for me but was not able to observe what he did because I delivering a bike to a customer. My reasoning for questioning how level it is he was only out there a couple of minutes when he put his level & blocks back in his truck. He told me "You're only out a couple of thou. Let it eat". I thanked him and he left. The deal is I can't seem to achieve repeatability. It just so happened that a machinist who works at one of the local refineries stopped by one evening last week to talk about some motorcycle repair and asked how my new machine was doing and asked if I'd leveled it yet so I told him what I've said here. He brought me a 12" machinist level to check it with and according to it my lathe is not level in any plane.
Here's where I'm perplexed due to my lack of knowledge. Tom, my machinist friend tells me and I read that one needs blocks to level a lathe accurately, that you can't just set the level on the ways and setting it across the Vways is a no-no but that's exactly what is shown there in the photo and that's what I did since I don't have the blocks.
What's a mother to do? Do I HAVE to have the blocks or can you indeed just set the level on the ways?
Here's where I'm perplexed due to my lack of knowledge. Tom, my machinist friend tells me and I read that one needs blocks to level a lathe accurately, that you can't just set the level on the ways and setting it across the Vways is a no-no but that's exactly what is shown there in the photo and that's what I did since I don't have the blocks.
What's a mother to do? Do I HAVE to have the blocks or can you indeed just set the level on the ways?