10L foot shims????

Take a close look between the pedestal foot and the bed casting. See those 1/8" shims in there?

That's not my lathe, but mine had them. I just assumed they had to be the work of the same guy who mispainted this lathe. But then I found that someone else has them!

They're just crudely cut pieces of 1/8" flat bar stock. They have a very homemade look.

I was planning to leave them out, but now I'm not so sure. Seems pretty clear now that SB put them in, so I gotta figure there's a good reason.

Will have to try to take some measurements to see if I can find a reason. Really could use a 5ft surface plate!

My lathe's S/N is one of the ones with an X in it, meaning it's "special". I took that to mean a good thing. Now I'm thinking it's P.C. for "challenged".

Does anyone else know about, or have these plates?

Ken

Does the machine have legs on the tailstock
end or is it cabinet base?

If it is cabinet base then the round pin visible
in your photo is a pivot pin and the tailstock
end should be free to move on it - which means
those shims really should not be there.

If it has legs then they may have wanted to
use exising tailstock bases (between the
chip pan and bed but wanted to disable the
adjustability of the pivot pin, so the user
could shim under the legs.

Jim

Jim:

The picture Ken included at the top is my lathe and I am 99.999% sure that those shims were there from the factory. My lathe still has the original cosmoline and I'm very confident that it is all original and unmolested. Why are they there? I have no idea as you would assume it meant the castings were too short. Maybe those shims were available in different thicknesses and they did some baseline leveling with them. But they were put there by SB for some reason. For better or worse.

Ken: My serial number is 18815RKX. Maybe "X" means used the leftover castings with shims.

Ken:

As verification, I just took a quick measurement of the height from the pan to the machined flat surface of the bed which sits on top of the shims along with an equivalent measurement near the headstock. Both measured out at just short of 3.8" It's flat WITH the shims.

Hi There,

I haven't seen this before but I think it is
entirely possible that it's original. Many
companies would this kind of thing if there
was a "mistake" made in the machining of parts.

If it were me and I was tearing down the lathe
for refurbishing, I would check the relative
height of the foot stock and head stock pedestals
and see if they are off. Also, I would check
the relative height of the lathe bed from the
chip pan at the head stock and foot stock ends.
This would give an idea whether they are original
or additions.

Either way, they shouldn't affect the "twisting"
feature of the foot stock pedestal.

One other idea that comes to mind is that this was
done to create a slant to the chip pan (when the
bed was leveled) so that coolant would run towards
the tail stock end of the bed.

Good Luck!
-Blue Chips-
Webb

Jim, both the machines I mention are cabinet base. I understand the use of the pivoting leg. Both shims are of equal thickness, so it seems there use was for affecting the height, not the twist. I would agree with you that it probably had something to do with changes in parts that SB used for production.

Waterlogged wrote:

Ken: My serial number is 18815RKX. Maybe "X" means used the leftover castings with shims.

Click to expand...

Mine's 17829RKX, so a bit older, but not much.
PS I didn't give you credit for the pic source in case you wanted to remain anonymous -- you now have alot of jealous lathe owners who want your lathe.

Webb wrote:

I would check the relative
height of the foot stock and head stock pedestals

Click to expand...

I intend to do that, but can't right now due to having the pedistal still part because I'm painting the shaft ends. I assume I'll find the same thing Waterlogged did, however.

One other idea that comes to mind is that this was done to create a slant to the chip pan

Click to expand...

Good thought, but the bung for drainage in the chip pan is pretty much centered.

Looks like I better paint up the edges of my shims.

Ken

Going back and looking at the painted parts
in the other post makes me realize why
the shims don't effect the pivot operation.

The pad under the shims is what pivots on the
shaft!

Jim

Hi i just aquired a heavy 10 sn# 18161RKX and it has the shims. I have it in pieces and am currently cleaning the parts in preparation for paint

Jack

My old bed, serial #17088RKX16 has shims at that location but they are flat barstock running for and aft and do appear to be original to the machine.

I'm going to make a garden bench or something from that bed so maybe I'll take them out for a look to see if they have some sort of identifiable marking.

(It's a nice straight 3.5 ft bed with cabinet and underdrive that noone local showed interest in coming to pick up even though I could probably be persuaded easily to give it away for free, BTW)

Ok. The paint dried on the foot shaft end, it's cleaned up and assembled.

I put the pair of feet on a surface plate. I measure the tailstock foot being .134" shorter. Should have done this first before asking about it, but I just couldn't make myself believe they'd do something like this.

Here's a few pics to show the two feet and what the shims look like (they're still in the "paint shop" so, still have some wayward paint.

Ken








[ 06-04-2007, 09:56 AM: Message edited by: heavyKen ]