Really out of level floors

SirRage · Mar 25, 2017

My garage is really out of level and at some point I might just pour a new slab, but for now I can't afford that. It would be a bit incovient but I can put the machines on the levelst part of the garage, my question is should I be prioritzing havingt the mill and late on a level surface over havin them a bit in the way?

I do plan on fixing this, but it may take me a year to save up for it.

Derek Smalls · Mar 25, 2017

If the floor is solid, I can't see why being unlevel would matter at all.

wheels17 · Mar 25, 2017

Don't worry about leveling the floor, just shim the lathe level and bolt it down. I knew I needed to adjust for out of level on my floor, and I'm quite tall, so I built risers about 6" tall. I roughly leveled them, bolted them down to the floor, grouted underneath them, and then shimmed on top of the risers to get the lathe level. My floor wasn't too bad, about 5/8" over the length of the lathe.

I did a preliminary leveling of the risers with a carpenter's level. The risers had three small screws in the base so that I could adjust them for height and level before I grouted them in. You can see one of the small leveling screws in the center in the picture below

Bill D · Mar 25, 2017

I used 6" PVC water pipe with concrete poured in as risers. I added a foot to my lathe height since I am 6'2" tall. That is a few inches more than ideal but it allows me to put a milk crate under the foot brake. I plan to have another foot brake under the original one with some chain. Drop anchors in the slab, allthread up inside the risers, used some small pipe to cast holes up through the riser. I did some careful layout and the holes are not centered. They are designed so the foot bolts are centered on a small metal plate placed on top of the concrete. This moved the tie down studs about 2" off center.
Bill D

EPAIII · Mar 25, 2017

Garage floors are normally poured with a slope towards the door(s). This way, any rain water or snow melt will flow out. Also water heater leaks, in my case anyway. The neighbors knew about it before I did.

If the floor is solid, I would not worry about it. I have shims under the legs of my work benches to bring them level. My lathe's table has shop made levelers on the feet and they can be adjusted to make the table top level. That table is of welded steel construction and I cut about two or three inches off each leg to allow for the length of the levelers. I also tied the table legs down to a single spot on the floor as concrete is never very smooth and moving it even a fraction of an inch can totally destroy a leveling job on the lathe itself. Then I leveled the lathe on the table, using shims.

As for the mill, at present it is just sitting there. But I want to level it also, if only to be able to use a level to approximately set things in the vise. I'm not too sure when I will get to that. But having it a degree or so off level does not seem to have any effect on the work.

Floor stand drill press? I don't know if I will ever level it.

Remember, the navy installs machine shops on ships and the army in trailers. My previous shop was in a trailer.

dana gear · Mar 26, 2017

Our last addition shop floor was professionally poured/pumped over a 48 hour period, supposedly level, lasers were used, must have had dead battery's in them. The floor looks reasonably level but when we started setting up equipment using precession machinist levels we found that just about everything in there needed to be shimmed up to level out in some cases far more then we would have thought.
The older parts of the shop everything is leveled as well however I expected that as some of that concrete we poured ourselves (no one here claims to be a concrete finish expert)

DMF_TomB · Mar 26, 2017

most garages are poured on to dirt that may not be the most solid and the concrete is often of the thin side and often has no steel reinforcement rods or mesh. take that and put a car on it that weighs over a ton and ground settles later.
.
a vibration compactor to make dirt more solid before pouring concrete on it, many often skip that step
.
industrially often Steel H beams or piles are pounded into ground til they touch bed rock (40 feet or more not uncommon) and a concrete steel reinforced pad like 2 feet thick poured on top that left to cure slowly with water applied to keep from drying out til cure is 50% done in 30 days which is normal concrete standard
.
even with that floors have been known to settle years later

Fabworks · Mar 26, 2017

I formed and poured a small pad for my lathe as the floor sloped towards the door.

An added benefit was that the lathe was 4" higher which was nice for my aching back.

I poured the concrete on 6 mil plastic so it would not stick to the floor in case I wanted to move the lathe. I did put rebar in the slab.

I used the "high strength" bagged concrete from HD.

wawoodman · Mar 26, 2017

And, check it with a banjo player.

(What does it mean when a banjo player has drool coming from both sides of his mouth? The stage is level.) :stirthepot:

jim rozen · Mar 26, 2017

wawoodman said:
And, check it with a banjo player.

(What does it mean when a banjo player has drool coming from both sides of his mouth? The stage is level.)

A gentleman: a man who can play the banjo. But doesn't.

wawoodman · Mar 26, 2017

jim rozen said:
A gentleman: a man who can play the banjo. But doesn't.

Perfect pitch: when you pitch the banjo into the dumpster, and it lands right on the accordion.

SirRage · Mar 26, 2017

You made the pad right over the concrete and not bother digging up the existing concrete? That's interesting. I would have thought you would need to cut the pad out, pour it and rebar it to the existing slab.

Bondo · Mar 26, 2017

Lathes normally have 4 or 6 leveling bolts. They are used top-level the machine not permanent height adjusters. You cab level the machine then either pour a pad under the large or anchor it down using anchor bolts and steal plates under the lathe.

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wawoodman · Mar 26, 2017

SirRage said:
You made the pad right over the concrete and not bother digging up the existing concrete? That's interesting. I would have thought you would need to cut the pad out, pour it and rebar it to the existing slab.

There are bonding agents, but I agree with you. A broken-up surface would help with a mechanical bond.

Ziggy2 · Mar 26, 2017

wawoodman said:
There are bonding agents, but I agree with you. A broken-up surface would help with a mechanical bond.

I think the idea was that since he might want to move the lathe, he didn't want to make it permanent.

Hobby Shop · Mar 26, 2017

SirRage said:
You made the pad right over the concrete and not bother digging up the existing concrete? That's interesting. I would have thought you would need to cut the pad out, pour it and rebar it to the existing slab.

A while back at the other place, we had a situation where we needed to do the same thing. A 10" thick reinforced riser pad over the existing slab. I wanna say they used something called Cope. We glued together a couple cinder blocks and (2) 10"x12"x12" formed quikrete blocks for the test. One block was formed and dried, the glue was applied and the other block was poured over it. Nobody believed it was going to work. The result, I had the sledgehammer in my hand and there was no way you were getting those blocks apart. The blocks were completely destroyed but the bond couldn't be broken between the faces.

snowman · Mar 26, 2017

If you want it level, get it mud jacked, don't repour it if it's good concrete. They are even leveling concrete with two part foam now.

Limy Sami · Mar 27, 2017

wawoodman said:
Perfect pitch: when you pitch the banjo into the dumpster, and it lands right on the accordion.

How do you get the rock drummer off your front porch?

Pay for the pizza.

Really out of level floors

Aluminum

Stainless

Stainless

Diamond

Diamond

Hot Rolled

Diamond

Hot Rolled

Hot Rolled

Diamond

Hot Rolled

Aluminum

Hot Rolled

Hot Rolled

Stainless

Stainless

Diamond

Diamond

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