Lathe Leveling Foot Pads

[Paul Jones]

In my home workshop, I recently installed a 12”X37” geared-head gap bed metal lathe that was manufactured in Taiwan in 1987. The workshop is located in the garage where the garage floor has 1/16” per foot slope and the z-axis of the lathe runs in the direction of the slope. I built lathe leveling foot pads to help level the lathe in the x and z directions. The pads were machined from ASTM A36 mild steel plate that was rough cut with a CNC plasma cutter. The pads bottoms have a machined recess that leaves a 0.3” wide outer rim. The leveling bolts have a 12mmx1.75 thread pitch to fit the threaded holes in the bottom of the lathe stand. The threaded ends of the bolts were machined flat to fit into a recess in the pad tops. Each foot pad is 2.1” in dia., 1.5” tall, and has a 0.5” diameter by 0.5 deep recess in the top for the adjustable leveling bolts.