Lathe installation without a precision level?

[Ray C]

... Leveling Bed Pan... You're on a roll tonight, Rich :rofl:.

Trays with water? What, is that how cave man did it? (LOL)...

Here is one you guys with lots of time on your hands...lol....I was thinking today about a chapter in the Connelly book "Machine Tool Reconditioning" and they use water to test the height of the ways on a grinder by using clay to plug the ends and depth mic-ing to the water.. It's a bizarre, but back when the book was written maybe it was another idea someone had.

I was thinking for the fun of it get a clear plastic pan of water in it, and set it on the ways near the chuck and use a fine point pen and ruler or a scribe and mark the outside of the pan with a thin line. Then pick it up and careful move it to the tail-stock end check where the water is compared to the lines. I was thinking you could call it a "Leveling Bed Pan" :lmao:. I hope I didn't come off as preaching, but sort like the name Pastor Rich...:lmao: :lmao:

 

[Tozguy]

Pastor Rich, ....'leveling bed pan' ... that's a riot...it might earn you the name of Doctor Rich!

What do you think of the leveling catheter trick? Apparently there is a way to use a length of clear hose with water in it to level stuff.

 

[Ray C]

... Sigh... Degrading rapidly... Love it!

 

[Richard King]

Tozguy....It gives new meaning to the statement "Up yours" lol :rofl:

I like that Doctor King.....lol....The post has taken another twist.....and to another level

 

[Tozguy]

Learning is better when yur havin fun.

 

[Ray C]

Last night, I had a chance to confirm my initial test of this "Rollie" method.

I'm using a known, trusted collet chuck with some 1", 316 stainless steel shaft material that I keep in stock for propeller repairs. It's TGP finish -expensive stuff and it's pretty darn straight.

Initial Readings:
At the near end, RO is basically zero and 26" down the bed, TRO was 0.009".

It just so happens, I have two methods built into my setup to change leveling. Each leg of the bench has a 5/8" threaded leveling shaft built into it. Also (if you've noticed the other posts) I built 3-point balancing plates under each section of the lathe.

In the first part of this test, all adjustment from the 3-point leveling plates were negated and the TS and HS firmly bolted to the bench. Next, slight adjustments were made to a bench leveling screw under the HS as outlined in the procedure. The procedure calls for a piece of paper (I'll assume about 0.003" distance) shim under one leg. "Shimming" was accomplished by turning a leveling bolt 1/20 turn (approx 0.004").

Observed Results: Nothing!

Finally, it took about 2/3 turn (at 11 TPI: Darn near 1/10") before the end of the rod changed overall position a small amount of about 0.003". The near and far RO was completely unchanged (zero at headend and 9 thou downrange). Additional leveling bolt changes were made and it moved the bar a little more but, the RO was unchanged. Eventually, additional changes in the bolt produced no more change in the position of the rod.

I also tried resetting the changes in the leg and moving the other-side leg. Same result but the rod of-course moved in a different direction.

Next, after undoing all changes and using my fancy built-in 3-Point leveling system, the exact the same results were obtained but, much less adjustment in the bolts was required to produce the same shift of position of the rod. The RO was still zero near the chuck and 9 thou 26" down.

Conclusion:
1) In this particular lathe/bench combination, this method is not effective. At no time did the circular RO change at either the near or far end.
2) Since the overall position of the far-side RO did change, this method may be helpful for future analysis of tailstock alignment issues on this particular lathe/bench combination.

More results from other tests coming later tonight...


Ray

Rollie.
http://www.neme-s.org/Rollie's_Dad's_Method.pdf

 

[Dranreb]

I was thinking for the fun of it get a clear plastic pan of water in it, and set it on the ways near the chuck and use a fine point pen and ruler or a scribe and mark the outside of the pan with a thin line.

Is there a known surface tension compensation/correction formula?

Last night, I had a chance to confirm my initial test of this "Rollie" method.
Conclusion:
1) In this particular lathe/bench combination, this method is not effective. At no time did the circular RO change at either the near or far end.
2) Since the overall position of the far-side RO did change, this method may be helpful for future analysis of tailstock alignment issues on this particular lathe/bench combination.

More results from other tests coming later tonight...


Ray

Way beyond the call of duty, but very intriguing...keep up the good work :thumbzup:

 

[Ray C]

Actually those kinds of things are quantified. I worked on neonatal infusion pumps where delivery rates were 1 microliter per hour. A micro liter is about the size of a small beer foam bubble.

Is there a known surface tension compensation/correction formula?



Way beyond the call of duty, but very intriguing...keep up the good work :thumbzup:

 

[Ray C]

OK, upon closer reading and experimentation, I got the Rollie method to produce the desired results.

First, I misread the instructions. Intuitively, I knew the message being conveyed but when carrying-out the instructions, some marbles fell out of my head... Let's leave it at that.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do some "double-donut" (shaft with two round collars) types of cuts and do some accuracy checking. If all goes in the right direction, I'll write-up what was done. For the sake of continuity, I will however do the write-up in my original thread about the Lathe Bench that I started a couple weeks ago.

Ray

 

[Splat]

Tomorrow, I'm going to do some "double-donut" (shaft with two round collars) types of cuts and do some accuracy checking. If all goes in the right direction, I'll write-up what was done. For the sake of continuity, I will however do the write-up in my original thread about the Lathe Bench that I started a couple weeks ago.

Ray, I'm looking forward to this. Please, if you find the time, do this.