Ghetto Temporary Machinery Leveling Pads
I recently downsized lathes and the new to me one does not have built in leveling pads like my old Colchester did. I thought I had a set that would work in my junk box, but they were only good to 500 pounds each (and getting ripe), so no go there. I thought about making some nice ones, but no lathe and I am evaporating down the coolant in the mill to change it, so it is down for a couple of days (unless a paying job comes in). I then remembered that I had some Meehanite barbell weights from back when I thought exercising was fun and decided to use them. I used carriage bolts because they were fully threaded and self centering in the holes and used contact cement to glue on some shredded tire 3/8th inch rubber matt (about $2 worth from Tractor Supply) on the bottom of the weights to provide a little bit of noise isolation (I could feel the motor generator running in the house) from the slab. The lathe uses 3 point mounting and leveling only took about 5 minutes, and I will check it again in a couple of days. I will eventually replace these with some real ones when the stars align correctly (when Enco or MSC has them on sale with free shipping), but until then these should work.
I traced and then cut out the circular pieces with heavy shop scissors.
I glued the pads to the weights with 3M spray trim glue that was left over from another project.
They don't look too bad under the lathe and they do raise it a little (it needed it) and help with sound.
Total cost of these was about $5 between the bolts and the rubber material. Not bad in today's economy.
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