I've had my G0766 for nearly 7 years, and mostly no issues. I've recently gotten into making bespoke fountain pens, and I've noticed that the center of the tailstock is off center by about a few millimeters towards the operator. I've temporarily fixed the situation by placing a hacksaw blade under the front edge of the tailstock to shim it back to nearly centered. I feel I have to raise the right front leg in order to get the center to center of the spindle and tailstock to line ip perfectly. Has anyone else had a their larger lathe seem off (maybe settled or shifted to a non-level place on a concrete floor)?
I had this a few years ago with a G0632 where it was off by 2 millimeters and I resolved the issue by loosening the headstock which allowed it a little movement. Lined up the center point on both the head stock and tail stock and then tightened it down. Jeff
Thanks, Jeff. I will try that. Might move the headstock towards the center and see if the issue resolves more easily.
Mark, I would just start over, and level the bed using at least a 3 ft. Level. End to end, cross the ways, and diagonal from both directions. You get it level, then loosen the bolts that hold the legs to the bed, abour 3 or 4 turns, then let it settle for a couple days. After that, tighten down a turn or two at the opposite corners, then check for level again, then check to see if your centers are aligning, and if so then tighten the bed to leg screws all the way. Then, use the leveling foot pads to turn up or down to get total level. Check your centers again. After that if the centers are off a smidgen, the use a piece of rubber pad on the foot that seems out of whack. You should be able to get dead level, and perfect center alignment. Might take you 45 minutes to an hour, but you’ll be glad you did. Sometimes the bed will twist ever so slightly, putting tension on the lathe that needs to be corrected by loosening everything, and let settle.
Yesterday I moved the headstock about 1" toward the center and re-checked the alignment. It was much better. Maybe 0.5mm off center to center using 2 live centers as the points. I also took the tailstock off and cleaned the underside really well (haven't done that in ages). A little bit of built up grunge may have been the culprit.
