# South bend heavy 10 tubular cabinet leveling feet.  How I did it.



## Thoro (Sep 1, 2014)

So after I finished my restoration, I crudely leveled my lathe with some shims under the cabinet "feet".  This proved to be mildly adequate.  I had a lot of shake in the cabinet and was afraid that it was going to be shaky still with proper leveling jack feet under it just due to the nature of the tubular cabinet.  

First off, my findings are that these tubular cabinets are extremely rigid for what they are.  The concrete floor where I have the lathe is not flat at all, and a difference from one corner to the other of a washer is enough to get the thing to rock/teeter on two of the four feet.

Here is a picture of the feet.




You can kind of see that it is as piece of 3/8" steel welded to the bottom of the tube cabinet frame with two holes on either side of the tube. figuring out how to make a leveling foot for this situation seemed to be a bit of a choosey project for me because if I just put a bolt through one of the holes on each leg, it seemed to me that it would possibly cause undue stress as the weight would not be supported directly under the leg, and putting something directly under the leg seemed clumsy and complicated.

So without further explanation here is what I did.  In the first picture (above) you can see that I have put one end up on blocks, so that when I jacked the other end up it would not tilt the machine an extreme amount, to allow me to get my newly fabricated machine feet under the lather for installation.

Jacking the second side up and putting the feet on.  Used the cheesy jack that FORD provided me for my truck which I have replaced with a bottle jack and keep this around for these kind of things.




Feet going into place.



Touchdown!



I made them all from scrap and parts I had laying around.  The plates are 1/4" steel.  Drilled and tapped for 3/8-18 allthread.  The allthread is 2 1/2" long.  I glued some thin rubber sheet I have laying around to the bottom of each foot to provide grip and a little bit of vibration dampening.

Two of the feet prior to installation.



Rubber sheet glues to the bottom.



Before leveling feet.




After, at headstock.




After at tailstock.



One last note.  I was worried that after I installed the feet, that I would still have to shim the bed to the chip tray to further refine the bed leveling procedure, but to my surprise and delight, the machine was heavy enough that I was able to take the twist out of the bed by just using the leveling feet between the floor and the cabinet.  

Also, the machine is much more sure footed now.  The feet have all but reduced and shake and wobble in the cabinet to almost nothing.

Hope this may help anyone thinking about what to do with their awkward tube cabinets.


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