South Bend 10K - anchoring and leveling questions

[AtlantaBIRT]

Hello all..

I originally posted this question in the "Third Hand" forum and it was suggested I post it here..

I'm new to the forum but have been lurking here for a while. I own a music instrument repair company that I run out of my home and have finally created enough space for a lathe. I just purchased an older South Bend 10K lathe that is in excellent condition from what I can tell. It is mounted to the standard gray cabinet with the motor mounted underneath. I now have the lathe in my shop, a Starett 98 8" level, and am ready to start setting it up but I have a couple of questions first:

1. Should I anchor the lathe cabinet to my concrete basement floor? I have read lots of conflicting opinions on this and would like to get opinions from this site
2. If I should anchor to the concrete what method would be best? I have used the expanding concrete anchors made by Red Head on a couple of vise stands in my shop and they seem to work quite well.
3. I also know that I need to level the cabinet to the floor - how would I accomplish this (and allow for future adjustment) if I anchor the cabinet? Also - what type of shim material should I use under the cabinet to accomplish leveling it? Where should I place the shim material to provide a solid base for the cabinet?
4. Once the cabinet is anchored (or not) and leveled I assume I will then need to adjust the level of the lathe and ways where it attaches to the cabinet. What type of material should I use for this?

I do have some machine training from instrument repair school (albeit nearly 10 years ago) - mostly safety training and basic projects associated with our craft. However with that said I have never set up a machine from scratch so I'm at a little bit of a loss. I have a pretty good idea of where I want the machine to sit in the shop however after I use it for a few weeks I may want to move it slightly so perhaps "permanently" anchoring at this point is not the best decision.

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can offer me here. Thanks!

[quadrod]

Hi Atlantabirt, look here,http://www.wswells.com/data/install_index.htm
Also check out this site.
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/

[BigBoy1]

These are my thoughts and opinion and treat them as such. I have an identical South Bend 10" and mine is not mounted to the floor. The only reason I can see to mount to the floor is to prevent the machine from "jumping around" if there is unbalance. If there is that much unbalance to cause a heavy lathe to jump, then there are bigger problems to worry about.

For leveling, I used oak blocks. I cut them to several thickness and interchanged them until I found the ones which made it level. I did this about 10 years ago and haven't had a problem since.

[AtlantaBIRT]

These are my thoughts and opinion and treat them as such. I have an identical South Bend 10" and mine is not mounted to the floor. The only reason I can see to mount to the floor is to prevent the machine from "jumping around" if there is unbalance. If there is that much unbalance to cause a heavy lathe to jump, then there are bigger problems to worry about.

For leveling, I used oak blocks. I cut them to several thickness and interchanged them until I found the ones which made it level. I did this about 10 years ago and haven't had a problem since.

Thanks for the information! At this point I can't imagine what kind of unbalanced load I would be working on that would cause it to jump around but I guess anything is possible!

Are there specific points under the cabinet that I need to place the shims or basically just the corners?

Thanks!

[sch]

Another option, that makes leveling very easy, is screw mounted pads. Using two nuts, one below the machine on the screw and one above the lathe can be leveled in short order. An
example of such at Enco. http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INPDFF?PMPAGE=573&PMCTLG=00 They used to have some more reasonably priced ($2-4) ones but they are not listed.
If you are in Georgia, then earthquakes are not a concern. If in California then at least a couple of redheads would be in order, or a brace to a wall.