Bolting Lathe to Floor?

Re: Bolting Lathe to Floor? *LINK*

Sean Troy

>Hey Steve, Just as a point of information, Our club had a member who bolted his VB36 to the floor in his shop, concrete floor, and his bearings went out twice in a short time. He contacted the VB rep and was told bolting the lathe to the floor did not allow for the release of vibrations in the head stock, and this is what caused the premature bearing failure. How correct this is I don't know but it may be worth checking into it further before you do bolt to the floor. Best of luck and by they way, That Cherry smells great when being turned. Sean


http://www.azwoodturners.org

Try asphalt shingles

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

>Before you do anything drastic. Try putting a couple of asphalt shingles under each leg (you can trim the shingles down some if you wish). It worked for me...no more walking.

Tommy

Re: Bolting Lathe to Floor?

Richard Allen

>One of the best ways to secure your lathe to the floor is to provide point source contact. Instead of bolting the lathe to the floor make the contact surface smaller. Also make sure the weight is evenly distributed front and back.

If you do this and your lathe is walking around, then the lathe is "speaking" to you. Listen to what the lathe is saying and act acordingly. BTW the lathe isn't saying "Gee Steve, if you would just bolt me down I would be ever so much more happy." The lathe is more likely saying "STEVE! this is WRONG! I was never meant to spin a chunk of wood like this at this speed! If you want to turn wood like this buy a Oneway."

An easy adjustable point contact is a bolt in each corner.

Re: Bolting Lathe to Floor?

Guy

>Hey man, Be careful about bolting to the floor. Many people are both for and against this. When I had my Nova with stand it was over 500lbs and it barely walked. At first she was all over the place. I learned to slow it down a little and I made my base wider at the headstock end. You could take a 4x4 and notch it out to fit the cast iron legs and sit the assembly on a small piece of plywood on each end of the 4x4. This seems to put some tension with the weight of the lathe in the middle that pushes down. I don't know if this makes sense but still widen your base, suspend it, also try making a box and filling it with sand to add weight to your lathe. But you can always walk a lathe. My new lathe with stand weighs over 1200lbs and I didn't think it would budge. I was wrong :) I spun my first big chunck of wood a little too enthusiastically. That was impressive to say the least. Also look on the Google woodturning site and so a search, lots of opinions about this subject. Guy

Re: Bolting Lathe to Floor?

Bill Hale / The Wood Spinner

>I have a Oneway 2436 and when I firs got it I exceeded the limit and it walked , RAN , so fast I had a hard time getting my hand on the emergency stop button. I spoke loudly to me. I now have learned to start slow and increase speed to the proper speed.

A point of interest is that Oneway started saying not to bolt and they now say to bolt.

Good turning and be safe

Bill

Re: Bolting Lathe to Floor?

steve antonucci

>Thanks for the advice. I've been doing a fair amount of roughing (cherry and black birch), and the combination makes the shop smell like an ice cream parlor.

:-)

S

Can't Tie'em Down, But . . .

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In Jersey

>you can easily "coral" the critter as follows:

1. Cut a piece of 3/4" (hee hee) plywood that's 1-1/2" wider in all directions than each of your lathe-leg contact points.

2. Cut the center out of the ply so as to give about 3/16" clearance around each leg.

3. Set and level your machine carefully and then mark the position of each leg with an outline on the floor.

4. Jack one end of the lathe off the floor and glue a ply section (I use construction adhesive) for each leg on the floor, then lower the lathe so that the legs fit inside the ply sections.

5. Do the same for the other end.

Unless you spin wood so wild that the lathe will fall over, those little plywood squares will prevent the machine from walking across the floor, but will still allow it to "talk" to you about backing off on the speed.

Small advice: Get in the habit of turning your speed control to low after a turning session or when mounting a new blank. Slowly increase speed to the point of vibration, than back off a bit. As you get the blank balanced you can increase your speed without walkin' the walk.

Mark Mandell

[drop the 2 for mail]

Re: Bolting Lathe to Floor?

John Lucas

>Steve

I've never been a fan of bolting the lathe to the floor. When you have that much vibration something has to give. I think your better off adding extensions to the feet, more weight to the lathe or both as well as slowing the speed down.

My friend who turnes southwest vessels with a hole in the side had to spin at high speed out of necessity to cut around the void. He had a Powermatic that weighed 600lbs. He added 6 foot long 4 inch angle iron to the legs. It didn't walk anymore.

On my Nova I added a base that had a footprint about 28" and filled the base with gravel. It would still vibrate because of the connection from the lathe to the bed but it wouldn't walk. I felt this vibration was good because it tells me I need to slow down and keeps from damaging the lathe itself.

Subliminal Marketing?

steve antonucci

>Could it be that my Nova is telling me to buy a Oneway? I thought I heard it say DVR once, but I couldn't tell... ;-)

I hear you. And the lathe. I'm going to take other measures before I bolt anything. My leading candidate is a ballast box and point loads on the floor. I've got all of the stuff, so now it's just doing it...

S

Great Ideas Summary!

steve antonucci

>Summary:

Bolting - bad for lathe

Ballast - good, limits walking, doesn't help vibration.

Bigger feet- good, harder to clean around, tripping hazard

Point load- sharpened bolts through the foot to reduce footprint and concentrate load will reduce walking.

Speed kills- vibration is there for a reason. slow down. (Anyone that has ever turned on a Nova 3000 knows why I try to start at 684...no power below that.)

Thanks all for your input. I'll post a pic with whatever I do.

Steve

Re: Bolting Lathe to Floor? long

Doug Leite

>Aloha,Steve

To bolt or not to bolt, that is the question. My answere is,"depends.

I have a big lathe that I built all out of steel. It's mostly 3" X 3" X 1/4" square tubing and various flat plates, up to 1" thick. It is very heavy and I have it bolted to the floor because I have a swinging Jib Boom and electric hoist attached to it. When bolting it to the floor, I was careful to cut "shims" from sheet steel to fit under each of the four legs so as not to induce any stresses to the framework. The bolting process was to drill 1/2" holes into the concrete witn a hammer drill about 3 3/4" deep. Next I used expansion anchor bolts that I bought from the local "Hilti" dealer, 1/2" X 4 1/2" long. Installed these as directed and holds the machine down well.

I also have a Delta Midi Lathe that I recently built a collapsible stand for and also mounted a D.C. motor on it at the same time. The thought here is that this lathe will see some demo time, as it did 2 w-ends this month, and needed to be as portable as possible. I constructed the stand from 1 1/2" X 1/8" steel square tube. On the end of each leg, I welded on a 1/2" th. plate that was drilled and tapped 1/2"-13 and used 4, 1/2" bolts. I machined a point onto the hex heads leaving a little of the hex for a wrench and the flat on the point only about 3/6" dia. This reduces the footprint area and concentrates all of the weight of the machine/stand onto an area less than 1 sq. in. I adjust each bolt to have even weight distribution and tighten the locknut before using. It works great and when it does "shake" I know that it is time to slow down. Walk, hasn't happened yet.

Aloha

Doug

Re: Don't dismiss bolting

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>This topic always amuses me, almost as much as sharpening and horse care. Well meaning opinions and anecdotes,both first and second hand are readily available, and are often prefered to an understanding of the underlying science. Adding to the confusion is that not infrequently some lathe manufacturers have little better grasp of mechanical engineering and physics than the typical woodturner (though this doesn't apply to the VB folks). I'm not meaning to be derisive when I say this. Many of the issues woodturners face are well suited to personal experimentation and experience. Howevever, the experiences of any one, or even small group of individuals may not reveal fully the actual physical principles of what is taking place, nor point to the OPTIMAL approach to dealing with them.

The issue of lathe movement and means of restraint is one that can be described quite well using simple physics and mechanical engineering formulas. Don Watland, a once frequent contributor to rec.crafts.woodturning and also a person well educated in physics went to some trouble to describe what happens on a lathe when unbalanced wood is rotated, and why bolting is both standard practice in industry and advisable for woodturning lathes.

I have a summary of some of his pertinent comments in my article on the Kelton Balancer (it can be found in pdf format here: http://www.fholder.com/Woodturning/lyn.html)and greater expositions can be found by doing a Google advanced newsgroup search of rec.crafts.woodturning forWatland and bolting as the key words with a time frame that goes back 3-4 years.

Personally, I apply a multitude of techniques to deal with the forces developed by out of balance wood turned on the lathe. The Kelton article describes some and my earlier article on the Glaser Vibration Damper describes another, but I'd add that that my lathe is mounted to a bench that uses cast iron legs, is sand filled, does use a point source (bolt head)contact to the floor, AND I bolt it down. All the methods have a role to play, as vibration and movement is optimally dealt with at more than one frequency,arises from more than one source, and is transmitted along multiple pathways.

Re: Bolting Lathe to Floor?

BubbaBob

>I bolted my 400# Jet 1442 down with 1400 lbs of sand ballast. It goes nowhere and is more easily moved than if bolted to the floor.

BubbaBob

Re: Don't dismiss bolting

Greg Jensen

>I reviewed my VB 36 manual and it specifically tells you how to bolt the lathe to the floor.

Greg Jensen

Re: Dust Collection *LINK*

Dennis J. Gooding

>Sean, that theory was widely discussed in the Woodturning news group a couple of years ago or so, but it simply has no basis in fact. A simple analysis of the physics involved shows that bolting down the lath either helps or has no effect on the stress on lathe bearings. The issue is whether the unbalanced forces ever cause the lathe to lift off of the floor when it is NOT bolted down. If this never happens, then bolts have no effect except to prevent walking. If the lathe does lift off the floor, then bolting will REDUCE the maximum stress on the bearings. (The sudden stopping of a lathe crashing back onto a concrete floor can create acceleration forces far larger than than the unbalance force that lifted the lathe in the first place. Dennis

Remove the 2 to respond


http://www.roundthewoods.com/hooktool.shtm

Re: Don't dismiss bolting

Ruth

>Hi Lyn : )

I'd like to chime in and agree with you about Donald Watland's post 3 or 4 years ago; it's an excellent read. I have my lathe (The General) bolted to the floor with 2 x 4 boards spanning beams below the floor. My shop is inside a barn, on the second floor and this was necessary but isn't the total solution.

Back to Mr. Watland's post, his explanation was thorough, very easy to understand and quite educational.

Ruth

Re: Bolting Lathe to the Floor *LINK*

Dennis J. Gooding

>Sorry, my browser insists on using the SUBJECT line from from my last posting. Dennis


http://www.roundthewoods.com/hooktool.shtm

Re: Don

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>HI Ruth,

There must be some irony in (and to) Don Watland bringing us in correspondence again.

Re: Bolting Lathe to Floor?

Mike Schwing from Md.

>I'm kinda with Bubba here. I added 300 pounds of sand to the already 650 pound 3520a and I have yet to see the thing as much as begin to vibrate. It had wobbled a bit before adding the sand ballast, and I think somehow the addition of the ballast box created an additional connection point between the two sets of legs that must somehow benefit the stability in addition to the ballast.

I can throw huge out of balance whole logs, at least 100 pounds, on there with no wobble, shimmy, or shake. Stuff big enough that I need the Mrs. assistance to position it between the centers.

I was considering bolting to the floor before the ballast box addition, but now there's no need.

I should have fired it up before adding the ballast but after building the bed for it to see if it was the box or the ballast that made such a diff.

Rompin', Stompin' Lathe...

Peter Teubel

>Mark Wrote:

"Small advice: Get in the habit of turning your speed control to low after a turning session or when mounting a new blank."

====================================

Good advice. I neglected this little fact when I had a 24" walnut 1/2-log mounted to an 8"x1/2" thick flaceplate. I checked to see if the speed was set to ZERO on my remote console. It was turned all the way to the left. BUT one thing I DIDN'T notice was the fact the console was upside down. What LOOKED like min was actually max. When I turned on the lathe, it proceeded to try to spin up to 2000 RPMs. All 1500lbs of the lathe started bouncing over 6" off the floor and walked (or rather STOMPED) 8ft sideways, taking out one of my 4x4 support posts for the garage like it wasn't even there. It all happened in less than 5 seconds before I had the presence of mind to cut the power. Scary to say the least...

Bolt or ballast,just remember...

Bob Hackett

>All four feet of the lathe need to be in firm contact with the floor first.If you don`t level,shim or grout the contact points you run the risk of tweaking the ways and throwing things out of wack for things like the head and tailstock lining up over the full length of the bed.

David Lancaster did a demo for the club on lathe maintenance that included bolting and grouting the lathe to the shop floor using babbit as the grout.I thought it was an easy and excellent approach.

Mainely,Bob

Re: Don

Ruth

>Lyn,

Wonder what Donald would have to say about that! : ) He's a real sweetheart.

Ruth