Lathe bed to cabinet fasteners?

A

akjeff

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Curious as to folks thoughts on how the lathe bed should be fastened to the cabinet. I've got a 12" Commercial, with the under cabinet motor. Presently, it's pretty much set up per the manual. Where the lathe bed is bolted to the frame, it is done with rubber washers sandwiched between the flat washers. Kinda wondering if it would be better to eliminate the rubber washers or not? I have the cabinet bolted down to the floor via concrete anchors, and wondering if that's really a good idea or not. Perhaps free standing on leveling feet is a better way to go? Thoughts?
 
I think what you have is fine. Rigidity is what you are after with a with a a lighter machine like the atlas. The only consideration is to make sure you have no twist in the bed. This can be addressed with shims if required. Mike
 
^^what he said ^^
Level, square, plumb, rigid, and tight. Shim as req'd. You want nothing moving while cutting. Rubber washers provide no advantage.
If a guy wanted, he could try to isolate the motor mounting with rubber in hopes of mitigating some noise. But no guarantees. The motor is arguably isolated from the lathe with a rubber drive belt, so, depending on configuration, could be further isolated from the cabinet.
But the gain might be insignificant.
 
If it was really better without the rubber washers would the manufacturer really spend the money to add them to the package?
As with everything there are pros and cons.
You may gain a slight amount of rigidity.
You will give up some noise canceling. You will also give up allowance for tolerance accumulation in the 2 parts. Nobody makes perfect heet metal cabinets,, the rubber will allow the flexibility to accommodate some slight mismatch between the lathe and the cabinet.
 
Even with the rubber washers, you still, and I do, use shims to take the twist out of the bed. My concern with the rubber washers, is that they're bound to deteriorate over time, and move. Next time I do a major clean up and service, Will have to try it without them and see what happens.
 
I thought the original rubber pads were silly. On one hand it's recommended to lag the cabinet into the concrete yet then you turn around and mount the four corners of the lathe on thick rubber pads? Sure it's easy to tune the bed twist but it's also easy to compress the pads under working load. When I revamped mine I incorporated steel landing pads so the chip tray and the lathe feet landed hard and could still be shimmed yet kept the compressible rubber between the landing pads for sealing.

Best,
Kelly
 
That's kinda what I'm thinking of doing Kelly. My hunch is that those rubber washers are there to seal the chip tray for coolant users. I don't run coolant, just occasional cutting oil, so I have no need to make the chip tray liquid tight. The belt already takes care of isolating the motor from the head. I doubt there's much, if any vibration isolation going on via the rubber washers of the bed mounts.
 
The purpose of the rubber washers under the bed legs on the cabinet models is so that coolant/cutting oil stays in the drip pan until it runs out the drain hole in the right-front of the drip pan instead of dripping on everything beneath the pan. The rubber is thin and is essentially compressed to solid by the mounting bolts. Don't remove it or you will regret it.
 
It's possible to have both a positive, rigid, mounting register and a seal. You don't have to choose one or the other and given the choice, I chose both rather than merely a rubber mounted lathe.

Best,
Kelly
 
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