The lathe stand must be true, straight, and square, but it does not need to
be level. You do not want to put unnecessary forces on the bed of the
lathe. There is nothing in the design of the lathe that requires the lathe
to be parallel to the plane of gravity so long as the lathe is supported.

Henry

"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message
...

"billh" wrote: (clip) I think the proper terminology should be that the
base is sitting flat (ie, in the same plane) at all contact points.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bill, you are exactly right. We don't have a good work in the language
for
this, so everyone says "level." However, one good reason for making any
machine LEVEL is that is a reference angle that is easy to measure. You
can
put a spirit level on a lathebed, printing press or forklift, and easily
see
whether things are in line. This question comes up from time to time on
the
metalworking group--they work to much closer tolerances than we do--and it
comes down to this: if a metal lathe is too far out of level, the coolant
wants to run out.