Anchor 2200# lathe to concrete floor or not?

[partsproduction]

Dan ask the guy you bought it from, who bolted the risers down and then bolted the hollow adjuster screws to the riser, did he ever have trouble with it? He had it for 25 years that way.
If you are concerned about the lathe moving on you check the level of the ways every six months.

parts

[J Tiers]

......

It must be hard to keep the garage and basement floors from cracking too. And any concrete drive ways.

I was surprised, but in a lot of Texas, there isn't any such thing as a "basement". It's mostly slab houses. A real "basement", down 7 or 8 feet, would probably have a more consistent soil moisture and less movement. But maybe the soil is WHY there are no basements to speak of.

The people I know in TX all have slab houses.

[Joel]

In Texas, there are virtually no basements at all (I have only seen one down here). The reason they don't exist is simple. Any footing has to go below the frost line, which is 7 feet or so up north, but only about 5-10" here, so a slab is all you need. When you have to dig down and put blocks all the way around for the foundation, it is not too much added work to excavate the dirt out of the center to gain a lot of square footage, so doing it is a no-brainer.

Pier and beam foundations are found on many old homes, but very seldom done in new construction. I much prefer slabs, except for the rare occasion when it stays cold for long periods. In floor heating doesn't make sense here and hot air works well enough, but there is nothing like a warm floor. It is supposed to be 78° tomorrow, and the weather is very nice most of the year, so no complaints.

My main bench is bolted down, but my machines only have a bead of silicone around the base to fix their position. None of them ever move.

[Danl]

Dan ask the guy you bought it from, who bolted the risers down and then bolted the hollow adjuster screws to the riser, did he ever have trouble with it? He had it for 25 years that way.
If you are concerned about the lathe moving on you check the level of the ways every six months.

parts

I did not see you sneak in here, parts. I'm gonna bolt it down, for sure. It's just the details I'm focusing on now. As indicated in my opening post, Nardini recommends bolting it down, but they call for two 24" square by 10" deep concrete floor piers in which 8" J bolts are set. Not having anything other than an decent engine hoist is a real limitation, and if one of the J bolts is inadvertently set 1/8" out of position the jackbolts in the base of the lathe won't line up.

Thanks,

Dan

[lakeside53]

Typical requirement of many manfs. That's because they want you to install for both pull down and push up. If you are just securing for "tip over" Make some toe clamps.

If you want to install their way, make a template from plywood. Plywood holds e J-bolts while the concrete sets.

[BCRider]

Sounds like they also want to see the machine raised up by that 10 inch rise. What's the height of the spindle axis as it sits now? Or do the instructions show or specify pads of these dimensions in the floor?

[Danl]

BCRider,

I thought someone might misinterpret what I said, sorry. No, they wanted the tops of the piers to be the same elevation as the rest of the floor, not sitting above it.

Dan L

[Dave C]

I was surprised, but in a lot of Texas, there isn't any such thing as a "basement". It's mostly slab houses. A real "basement", down 7 or 8 feet, would probably have a more consistent soil moisture and less movement. But maybe the soil is WHY there are no basements to speak of.

The people I know in TX all have slab houses.

I don't know about Texas, but here in Mississippi we don't have basements because of the water table. You can dig a post hole today, and tomorrow it will be full of water. The hydraulic effect could lift a house with a basement right up out of its hole. Also, similar to Texas, we have unstable deposits of "Yazoo Clay" that shrinks and swells in accordance with seasonal variations in moisture content. Slabs and driveways do crack if not constructed properly.