Machinists, fellow record lathe operators, mathematicians: perhaps you can help. I am stumped.
The problem I’ve been having with my lathe is that my turntable is not level. It took me a while to discover what the problem was. Jacob Horowitz came over yesterday and showed me that the Scully turntable comes off with three bolts, and from the factory, it is leveled with three metal surface points right next to the three bolts.
(I should mention that the turntable was level until recently; this is a very recent problem.)
The old school way of getting it level was to insert shims until it was level. Think— ridiculously tiny shims. I’ve been using pieces cut from a cheap Harbor Freight feeler gauge in thicknesses of .002, .004, .006 inches, as well as different thicknesses of paper.
Every time I think I have it figured out, I get wildly different results. See the video below. This is about as good as I could get it. I literally took the three bolts off and removed the turntable over forty times last night, switching around the shims each time. Each result was completely unpredictable. This made it very frustrating.
I like things that are mathematical in their predictability. X plus Y equals Z. I get frustrated when situations involving sixty- to hundred-year-old machinery exhibit “ghost in the machine” type nonsense.
Anyway, if any of you all can help with suggestions, I would appreciate it. Jacob is coming back over this afternoon to see what he can do, but I figured there must be some old-school machinist or lathe guy out there who can offer that one tip that will make all the difference.
Click the image below to watch the video at Deke’s original Facebook post!
