Thread: Leveling a hercus 260 Prt II

I would concentrate on using the shims,no reason why if the machine is touching the shims in 4 places that it should wobble excessively.
There is the chance of the machine wobblying if the workpiece is greatly off centre,otherwise the weight of the lathe and cabinet should hold it firmly on the packing shims.

Does it wobble at all speeds ?

My Sheraton wobbles slightly at a certain speed, but is generally pretty stable otherwise .

My concrete floor slopes quite a bit at a oblique angle . I used rubber strips under the base of the lathe , at the front Rh corner the rubber is thickest .

Mike

Mike

I'm not familiar with the Hercus cabinet, so don't know how stiff it is. However, I think this needs to be done in two stages.
First, loosen off the lathe bolts so that the lathe bed is not twisting the cabinet. As Pipeclay suggested above, shims should be fine - you can always replace them later with custom machined single pieces but the first aim is to get the cabinet sitting so that it does not rock. A lot of these metal cabinets flex too much when empty and so it might help if you had a bit of weight in the bottom.
Once you have the cabinet firm then start on the lathe with the usual methods

Michael

I had a similar problem with my 260, I fitted a bolt and locking nut (1/2in Whit IIRC) to each of the threaded holes in the corners of the bottom of the cabinet. These were screwed down into a recess in a 75mm dia CI pad about 20mm high on the floor. The cabinet now sits about 25mm above the floor and is level and stable.

Chas.

No matter what you do the lathe will wobble at some speed... They are not $20 000 lathes that have balancing features built in, but light machines....

I have mine sitting on something like 50mm square pads with the feet adjustable so the machine is level, I then had to tweak the lathe bed/cabinet bolts to get the headstock to cut parallel...

It still wobbles at some speeds as it's harmonics all coincide... I do not think there is much you can do about it as the machine simply does not have the mass to absorb the out of balance forces...

As Pipeclay said it shouldn't wobble around on 4 shims at each corner. If it's from the lathe running the only thing I can suggest is to put weight into the cabinet to help out.

Dave

Thanks for the replies,

Today I will:

Clean up the lathe;
Take everything out of the cabinet;
Take out the shims that are already in place;
Attempt to level the lathe with a builders' level and using shims at each corner;
Place some plate weights in the cabinet;

If that doesn't work, I'll:

Take out the weights, undo the lathe leveling bolts and adjust from there.

If that still doesn't work, I'll go with Chas's idea of bolts through the corners in the base of cabinet. Thanks for that Chas, I didn't even know those holes where there.

Thanks Ben,

ps I know I should be using a machinist level but I can't afford one. I bought one from CTC and it was broken on arrival.

He has always been very good on replacing things for me, did you contact him, or are you waiting for another one to arrive?

Dave

Hi,

I sent him a email explaining how disappointed I was, but didn't ask for my money back as I had a little temper tantrum after spending a day trying to fix and adjust the level.

I sort of leveled the lathe, it's not perfect but it will do for the moment. I haven't test cut to proper spec's, just a quick reduction of diam. Has a 0.03mm difference in diam over 150mm (the work piece held in a three jaw chuck). Will continue to work on it.

I still have slight vibration when running, but its not to bad. I removed all shims and put about 40kg of plate weights in each end of the cabinet. Only using a builders level.

Ben

Cheers Ben.

Usually I have found he will give you a credit, or ask to send it back on his money, and then he resends you a new one.

Good to hear you are getting it sorted out. The carpenters level will be fine, I used one for years before getting a machinist level.

Dave

Originally Posted by bwal74

Hi,

Awhile back I posed a question regarding leveling my hercus 260. It's still not level.

The lathe is bolted to a factory cabinet via four leveling screws.

My concrete floor is highly uneven, not one corner is even. I'm talking a couple of mm's every corner.
........

Any suggestions. Ps I can't bolt the cabinet to the floor.

Thanks Ben.

I read you can not bolt the lathe to the floor so this idea may not be doable in your situation but I have a friend who had the same problem of a sloping uneven floor.

His approach was to build a small form out of timber (silicon to seal, about 25mm thick) and then pour self levellling compound as a base for the lathe. It worked a treat for him!

Originally Posted by HavinaGo

I read you can not bolt the lathe to the floor

Interesting, that's opposite to what I thought... sometimes you can have a twist, that's impossible to get out with having it bolted down...

Of course I might be completely wrong, but I'm pretty sure I remember Marco saying that at the scraping course when we did a session on lathe alignment. Happy to be corrected.

Regards
Ray

Originally Posted by bwal74

ps I know I should be using a machinist level but I can't afford one. I bought one from CTC and it was broken on arrival.

Probably a bit late now..but doesnt Johst Heine (CTC) send stuff Freight insured?

Originally Posted by eskimo

Probably a bit late now..but doesnt Johst Heine (CTC) send stuff Freight insured?

As far as I know it all is.

Dave