Inexpensive heavy dusty adjustable feet for table jig or bench

OK so all of these things use the same idea. Namely heavy duty, affordable, adjustable feet for any table bench or jig. Simply get a hold of some 1"-8 x 2-1/2" bolts and the nuts to match. Here in NC we have a scrap metal place that sells them for about 50 cents a piece,for the nut and bolt. The nut is the perfect size flat to flat to slip into 2" square tubing that is 3/16 wall thickness. The only other thing you have to do is to cut / sand off two opposing corners of the nut until it will slip into that same 2" tube.
Then just weld the nut in place, screw in the bolt, and you have a heavy duty adjustable leg for any Bench or Jig or Table. Additionally you can drill through the side of the leg where the nut is and then tap the hole (1/4-20 would do nicely) insert a small round of brass and a quarter twenty bolt and be able to make sure the foot does not turn when you are dragging the bench or what ever, anywhere you want, or you could buy a few additional nuts and use them as locking nuts. The whole idea is to have a heavy duty adjustable foot for what ever you want and not have to pay through the nose for it. I mean 50 cents for each adjustable foot is pretty damned cheap for this sort of thing, and it will take literally tons of weight. I have included a few pictures of some of the uses I have put these rascals to. you will notice that the small stand next to the tube bender is partly on the metal pedestal and partly on the cement floor, with adjustable legs this is easy to still have a level surface, without them... not so much.

Thanks for the tip on the sizes, hardtail69. No fussing about when I go to the hardware store.

you are welcome DIYer. Its a simple thing but many simple things can lead to a great project. like this one. It is the finished and now working south bend screw cutting lathe that I have been working on. Every part was taken off, cleaned, repaired, (if necessary, and oooh was there a lot of necessary), or replaced, repainted, and reassembled. This was undoubtedly the most complex mechanical project I have ever undertaken. But as I said, it is now working and I have been making parts with it. I am still learning how to make stuff with it but I will tell you that having taken this thing down to bare metal and individual parts, I understand much more thoroughly how to use it than if I had bought a working unit to begin with. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Nice work. May I suggest adding some rubber pads on those feet? For vibration damping and surface protection.

Al

Great Idea Hardtail69! Love the simplicity of it and great to find the 2" tube is a natural fit for the nuts! That's a "Purdy" SB you have there too and absolutely agree about taking it all apart first!! Did that with my peanut and it made a world of difference for a newbie like me, to machining. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks hardtail69! I've added your Adjustable Bench Feet to our Workbenches category, as well as to your builder page: hardtail69's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/adjustable-bench-feet"><img src="http://www.homemadetools.net/uploads/126618/adjustable-bench-feet.jpeg" /></a></div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/adjustable-bench-feet">Adjustable Bench Feet</a> <span> by <a href="/builder/hardtail69">hardtail69</a></span> </div> <div class="tags">tags: <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/workbench">workbench</a>, <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/welding">welding</a>, <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/adjustable">adjustable</a></div> </div> </div> </div>

That's one idea I'm fixing to put to use in the not too distant future.
Well done

I had a metal table made for a fryer in a commercial kitchen. Instead of a bolt as hardtail69 did, the shop used a carriage bolt. The carriage bolt would slide, and not dig into the vinyl floor covering. Of course, the fryer oil acted as a good lube between the floor and the carriage bolt.

Too bloody obvious.:bow:
I have been welding the nut in the corner of 50x5mm angle but thinner square RHS is a far better option for both strength and looks. To prevent sliding and provide a little damping I tack a large frost plug on the bolt head and fill it with a solid neoprene plug that sticks out about 5-10mm

Excellent simple idea, will be using it this weekend for my Mini Lathe bench I am making, the imbecile who did my workshop floor (garage) mustn't have used a level as it slopes both across and down this will allow me to get the bench level, many thanks

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Originally Posted by Aussie48

Excellent simple idea, will be using it this weekend for my Mini Lathe bench I am making, the imbecile who did my workshop floor (garage) mustn't have used a level as it slopes both across and down this will allow me to get the bench level, many thanks

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In general practice I think most home garage floors do have a slope to them. Everyone's garage floor I've ever seen had a couple inches or more gradual slope towards the door and sometimes across towards the center and the garage floor is almost always a few inches lower than the house floor this is done mainly for drainage if the vehicles are parked wet or with snow on them

They might where you live Mate but not here in Australia floor levels are controlled by CCAA T49 CEMENT CONCRETE AND AGGREGATES AUSTRALIA 2003 which has a maximum allowance of slope or fall of 1/80th of the span. The floor in my workshop has a fall of 1 inch away from teh house and 1 inch towards the double roller door. It was either built before 1989 when the Standards were made Law or a dodgy one eyed contractor laid them.

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Originally Posted by Aussie48

They might where you live Mate but not here in Australia floor levels are controlled by CCAA T49 CEMENT CONCRETE AND AGGREGATES AUSTRALIA 2003 which has a maximum allowance of slope or fall of 1/80th of the span. The floor in my workshop has a fall of 1 inch away from teh house and 1 inch towards the double roller door. It was either built before 1989 when the Standards were made Law or a dodgy one eyed contractor laid them.

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Aussie48,

Please forgive my intrusion but I saw this post and gave me some intrigue thinking about the Aussie Code and US/IBC/... codes as we all have run into this issue. Not sure what size your garage is but basically, 2 car Garages in the States are ~10"x20'± and applying Aussie code that would give numbers of 1.5" at the opposite wall and 3" toward the double roller door. So it appears you are right about the builder but was under code in both directions based on typical US garage sizes.

Then I started thinking about your bench and Hardtail69's 1"-8tpi bolts for a workbench that may be only 4'-6' long X (?) deep for a mini-lathe? At 8tpi that is .125" per thread which may be a bit course for a slope of ~.1/ft or ~.05/ft depending on layout direction on a 4'-6' bench? I might recommend using a fine pitch 1"-12 or a 24mm-1.5 to better level your bench in both directions. Hopefully my math and assumptions are correct and make sense.

Also tried to find codes for US and international but all are vague and I believe on purpose. Depending on the owner/architect/developer and how foundations shift over time and the additional costs to back fill, grade, compact and properly support, and screed properly a sloping slab or 2 slabs of these sizes...would add several thousand $$ to a build. It would also depend on whether the house/door was attached to the end opposite the rollers or the side of the garage whether a slope was needed in 2 directions...A lot to it I think. My biggest issue is with not enough re-bar and cracking over time based on ground movement, uneven thickness or prep...although puddling is a PIA.

Hardtails design is quite a good one, IMHO also! As I said it was intriguing rabbit hole we have all struggled with.

Good luck with your build and would love to see some pictures of your Mini-lathe bench as quite a few of us here have them.

Cheers, PJ :hattip:

Close but no cigarette PJ, the code calls for 1/80 so a 20 foot long garage has a maximum slope of 1/4" towards the doors and 1/8" wall to wall, it is 10' x 20'.

This little lathe 7" x 12" is quite surprising quality wise, it has no Brand other than MX-180V. I chucked a 3/4" piece of precision ground 316 stainless and ran the dial indicator over it to get a run out of .00039" I don't think I will try and get it better than that. My old 39" between centres 17" swing over the bed (gap bed) the best I could get was .004" so was pleasantly surprised. Checked all surfaces when I stripped it down to clean the preservative off and there is no slop in any of the moving surfaces. All in all a very well made and put together machine from China.

The bench is quite tiny as the garage is full of one of my other hobbies 7 1/4" live steam locomotives, so the bench will only be 33 1/2" long x 34 1/2" tall and 14" deep, god I hate having to convert from Metric to Imperial, so it's around those measurements :angry:. The thread is coarse but should suit the job, have cut out all the 30 x 30 x 3 SHS pieces and now have man flu so am taking it easy for a while, will post pictures as the build progresses.

Dick

Dick,

BTW welcome to Homemade Tools. Noticed you just joined last month. Lots of good people here, great ideas and projects.

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Close but no cigarette PJ, the code calls for 1/80 so a 20 foot long garage has a maximum slope of 1/4" towards the doors and 1/8" wall to wall, it is 10' x 20'.

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I did spend a whole night in the smoking car talking with some real nice folks on the train from Melbourne to Adelaide in 2001 and went to my Grandsons 3rd BD party yesterday...nothing like a house full of 3-5yr old kids to rattle an old farts brain but, in this case I do believe I am correct. The units for Rise/run must be the same. "Gradient ratios are dimensionless, so as long as the units of rise/fall and run are the same, the ratio holds true." In your case you divided 20' by 80 and came up with .25 and 10'/80 to get .125 but those would be Feet not Inches. Staying Metric your shop is 3048mm X 6096mm and based on a 1:80 gradient your fall should be <38.1mm and 76.2mm, i.e. (<1.5" and 3"). Here is a link to a Paving expert website. The Quote above is from there and at the bottom of the page is a calculator and if you plug the Run and Gradient you get the numbers...me I did them with a spreadsheet of course.

So in my humble estimation your shop floor is well within spec. in both directions...hence the suggestion for the fine pitch threads. Also my assumption of your bench size was considerably larger than you are building so it adds to the point of fine adjustments....not that it can't be done with course thread and a deft hand.

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This little lathe 7" x 12" is quite surprising quality wise, it has no Brand other than MX-180V. I chucked a 3/4" piece of precision ground 316 stainless and ran the dial indicator over it to get a run out of .00039" I don't think I will try and get it better than that. My old 39" between centres 17" swing over the bed (gap bed) the best I could get was .004" so was pleasantly surprised. Checked all surfaces when I stripped it down to clean the preservative off and there is no slop in any of the moving surfaces. All in all a very well made and put together machine from China.

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Man that is impressive for out of the crate cleanup to have 4 tenths RO...best I ever got with my used HFT is 3 thou. Paul Jones has done some impressive things with his Unimat and Sieg type mini to get those kinds of numbers. Had a look for that model as the number sounded familiar, like Optima or something but did find a MX-180D that looks pretty nice with a 600W motor.

Hope you feel better soon and looking forward to your future postings.

PJ

Morning PJ,

Well it's 7:43 am Monday 5/03/2018 down here so depending where in the USA you are it is probably still Sunday. That is my machine but a later version I suspect it is really well made and runs like a dream, held out for this one as I didn't want plastic change gears as I could see heartache with those. All metal change gears, 16 TPI lead screw and will do all I need nowadays, for any big work I can use my Mates Lathe and Mill. Some very smart people on here and followed the Paul Jones link and found his Lathe Spider which will be the second project the first being a case length gauge for a 1921 310 Martini Cadet Rifle, I don't know why LEE don't make and market them.

I hate Metric with a passion especially the threads most of my trains are either BA or UNF which to a simple mind is a much nicer system.

Ah the days before the Politically Correct forced their values upon us, no smoking basically anywhere outdoors here now or at least within 4 metres of an outdoor Cafe or Govt building and certainly not in any train or station. I sometimes wonder what the younger generation will be allowed to do in years to come but end up with a headache.

All the best

Dick

Someone will come around and preach to them that their moca moca latte or what ever that bilge water stuff is they drink, is bad for them then they will have a whole new set of created self induced fears to worry about.Either that or hopefully they all just die of shear boredom my own gen X kids and Millennial grand kids included but I probably will be long gone by then

:lol: Snow Frank S, that's that cold white wet stuff I believe, have heard about it and actually played in some when I visited Crater Mountain in Oregon in 2010, nasty cold wet stuff, none where I live Mate. Most garage floors here are laid as flat as possible usually with no more than 1/8" slope towards the doors. The workshop I had built at my last place, the floor was laser levelled to within .001" to accommodate my Lathe and Mill and a very nice job the concreter did no packing required to get both machine perfectly level.

PJ am in a quandry have cut a zillion pieces of 30 x 30 x3 SHS into what I presumed I would need to build my bench but am having flashes as to what I could incorporate into the plan that is in my head. Have welded the nuts into the bottom of the legs and apart from one managing to get a small piece of slag into the thread all good, The dremel fixed the offending slag very handy tools at times especially when you don't have the required size tap. Now should I have a full length draw, 2 half width drawers, 1 half width draw, or no draw at all, I tend to loose bits in drawers? Suggestions most welcome.

Dick

P.S. Must find a suitable Avatar

Aussie48,

I saw no reference to "snow" in Franks response to the PC & millennials¿ Was that from a PM?

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PJ am in a quandry have cut a zillion pieces of 30 x 30 x3 SHS into what I presumed I would need to build my bench but am having flashes as to what I could incorporate into the plan that is in my head. Have welded the nuts into the bottom of the legs and apart from one managing to get a small piece of slag into the thread all good, The dremel fixed the offending slag very handy tools at times especially when you don't have the required size tap. Now should I have a full length draw, 2 half width drawers, 1 half width draw, or no draw at all, I tend to loose bits in drawers? Suggestions most welcome.

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Not wanting to hijack Hardtail's thread any more than I already have, here are a few thoughts to answer your quandary. You could start a "Tools In Progress" posting and get lots of thoughts and interaction.

Personally I like a drawer or two with a shelf and a door to keep the chips out. I used a 4U rack drawer that I had on hand because it's metal and has good HD slides on it. My bench is a restructured Music Rack, (still a bit wobbly but fits my tiny space) and a solid top I salvaged from 2 end tables. Cheap, cheerful and recycled. For the drawer I built small wood bases with pins to hold my QCTP holders and spare bits and spare gears, a small box for tail stock stuff (Chucks, centers, etc.) and it even holds my tailstock when I not using it. Also keep my sundry collection of HS tools in a large end mill plastic tube/box. Below the Drawer I keep my cheapy machinist box for measuring and anything else I would generally use...and it keeps the chips out.

Personally I've been keeping an eye out for a recycled kitchen counter setup at the local Habitat Restore (recycle store) with drawer(s) and cabinets, then put or make a butcher block type top on it. If you do a search here on the forum you will find tons of benches for lathes and general. One of my favorites is LMMasterMariner 21 drawer for a larger lathe but it's made from wood...maybe too many drawers but Strong and Nicely built with retractable wheels.

PJ

Franks reference to the snow is in post 11.

Had a brain fade the other day, hot about 113 F in the shade so didn't do any welding on the stand. But had a thought, it would be easy to fabricate a 4" bed extension to bolt on to the rear of the bed and that would get the tailstock out of the way and give me a bit over 14" between centres, what do you think? Also took the 3 jaw chuck of to clean inside and out and discovered that the backing plate is drilled for both 3 and 4 stud chucks so don't have to fit and adapter and loose a bit of the distance between centres.
Have decided on a full length drawer, will make it out of what we call Melamine covered Chip Board as I have a sheet of 1/2 thick on hand and a bottom shelf made from the same material. With the quick change tool holders I am milling from 1/2 aluminium sheet some 60 degree slides for the holders to sit in and screwed to pieces of 1" x 1/2" Australian Redgum mounted on a board at the rear of the table in line with the tailstock. I picked up a metal drawer years back that has 5 sliding drawers in it stands aout 13" tall, 12" wide and around 13" deep that I used to keep my files in. Will fasten that to the bottom shelf and keep files and tool bits etc out of the way in that.

Dick

Franks reference to the snow is in post 11.

Had a brain fade the other day, hot about 113 F in the shade so didn't do any welding on the stand. But had a thought, it would be easy to fabricate a 4" bed extension to bolt on to the rear of the bed and that would get the tailstock out of the way and give me a bit over 14" between centres, what do you think? Also took the 3 jaw chuck of to clean inside and out and discovered that the backing plate is drilled for both 3 and 4 stud chucks so don't have to fit and adapter and loose a bit of the distance between centres.
Have decided on a full length drawer, will make it out of what we call Melamine covered Chip Board as I have a sheet of 1/2 thick on hand and a bottom shelf made from the same material. With the quick change tool holders I am milling from 1/2 aluminium sheet some 60 degree slides for the holders to sit in and screwed to pieces of 1" x 1/2" Australian Redgum mounted on a board at the rear of the table in line with the tailstock. I picked up a metal drawer years back that has 5 sliding drawers in it stands aout 13" tall, 12" wide and around 13" deep that I used to keep my files in. Will fasten that to the bottom shelf and keep files and tool bits etc out of the way in that.

Dick

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Had a brain fade the other day, hot about 113 F in the shade so didn't do any welding on the stand. But had a thought, it would be easy to fabricate a 4" bed extension to bolt on to the rear of the bed and that would get the tailstock out of the way and give me a bit over 14" between centres, what do you think?

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I was up in Oodnadatta in mid March on my trip and it was ~140°F and the black flies looked like moving ground cover, when they weren't trying to climb in my nose...hard to do anything above 115°F for me too. Anything is possible, but for my "precisionist" sensibilities mimicking the ways, height, level, lateral alignment and attachment seems pretty daunting without tools I don't have or access to.

PJ

Those bush flies are a right pain, Oodnadatta now that's a place I would rather avoid same as Coober Pedy and Marble Bar to hot for man or beast, although the Pubs do sell nice cold Beer.

I think the bed extension is possible, I have access to a surface grinder so the only hard part as you have rightly pointed out is getting it dead plumb. There is enough meat on the rear of the bed to drill and tap cap screws to snug it up to the bed and 2 locating dowels. The end of the bed is milled smooth so a quick skim to make sure it is dead straight to the ways should do the trick. Anyway if I don't try I will never know, nothing ventured nothing gained as my Dad used to say.

Dick

Have had another think about the bed extension. I am going to make a wooden mould (allowing for shrinkage and machining) and have it cast in SG2, still use 2 locating dowels and cap screws to hold it snug and firm.

Cheers

Dick

Aside from making the extension. You did mention you have access to a precision grinding machine to assist in the machining the part this is all well and good as far as that goes. But the foremost important aspect of this project is going to be the mating surface of the lathe bed itself. Just because the end may have a machined flat surface do not assume that the surface will be perfectly square and perpendicular to the ways. They almost never are even on the most expensive lathes
Plan on doing a lot of scraping in this area to get that surface as near perfect as possible before mating the 2 together then after all doweling and bolting is done the ways of the extension will have to be scrapped to match the bed. 4 inches or 4 ft the process needs to be the same

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Originally Posted by Aussie48

Have had another think about the bed extension. I am going to make a wooden mould (allowing for shrinkage and machining) and have it cast in SG2, still use 2 locating dowels and cap screws to hold it snug and firm.

Cheers

Dick

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It appears you have access to a lot of processes and equipment. As for SG2...wow, I would not have considered that because of it's properties. Machining and grinding will be slow going and hard on tools, let alone scraping if you do, especially once hardened which it basically is from the forming forging process. It's generally used in knife making and a block the size you are talking about will have some issues with molding and forging of the PM. Why not just use granite blocks like Dan Gelbart did with his super precision lathe/grinder. You can get it in moldable epoxy type material also.

Had one of the best burgers ever (w/Beet & egg) in Oodnadatta at the gas/grocery/shop...everything store and yes a cold one. The flies were a Pita but harmless near as I could tell. The rail station museum was pretty good too. Coober Pedy had one of the best pizza's also. It seems both were/are still pretty much wild wild west also as there were Definitely some interesting characters and encounters while there. One of the best parts of my trip, minus some of the heat and flies.

PJ