Dancing around the shop

[Woody]

If your only making pens and small stuff then there isn't the need I suppose to bolt a lathe down but if you want to turn logs (unbalanced ) items then I would advise bolting the lathe down there are so many dangers involved when a lathe dances tool could jump and do you a serious damage is just one thing I know it happened to me and I got my thumb trapped between the bowl gouge and the tool rest and it still hurts to this day in the cold some 10 years after

Bolted down or weighed down still the same thing in one sence the Nova lathes if have rubber inserts in the feet to absorb any shocks from unbalanced wood so bolted down is a good thing if its a bad thing to bolt a lathe down then why do the manufacturers put holes in the feet you can buy industrial rubber pads to go under any stand to do the same thing also if the lathe isn't bolted down and you have a bad accident will your insurance cover you also will your warranty still be valid just a thought

 

[MikeD]

Back in the 1980's when we had machine tools installed we stopped using rag bolts to fix the machines rigidly to the floor and instead started using shock blocks. This was the advice from most machine manufacturers at the time but they were very heavy machines and we rarely machined items out of balance.
A lot of heavy machines nowadays are rigidly fixed to concrete slabs - rough rule of thumb the concrete block should weigh more than the machine and should have expansion joints around it to stop transmitted vibration.

I think for the sort of application we have it is safer if the lathe is fixed or weighed down with ballast - depends what sort of turning you are thinking of doing.

Don't forget your other machines as well

 

[Jim]

Thanks again guys, i think i will be going with the weight rather than bolting the lathe down, hopefully seeing Doug's homemade cupboard will give me assistance with what i need to do.