Background The practice of dowel pinning machinery was originally conceived within the U.S. Navy, well over a century ago. This innovation was triggered by the need for a solution to the extreme conditions faced onboard naval surface vessels and submarines by directly-coupled rotating machinery with respect to hull and foundation deflection related to changing temperatures [...]

Soft Foot has often been noted as the most inexact science portion of Shaft Alignment. Historically, when people think of Soft Foot, they often want to neglect, ignore, or otherwise do everything possible to not deal with it. This is one of the traps that leads down the path of bad habits, bad alignments, and [...]

By Daus Studenberg – Applications Engineer There are certain cases where it is necessary to make sure that two machines have a considerable amount of parallel radial offset. Such machines are usually coupled by a cardan shaft where more than 4-6 degrees of angle exists between the cardan coupling and the machines. Once the offset [...]

There is more to proper shimming of a machine for alignment than meets the eye. There are several things you should keep in mind and look out for. First and foremost, you should be using high quality precut slotted stainless steel shims, such as Lawton Precut SS-304 Shims. If you think cutting your own shims [...]

On a recent alignment consultation, we were requested to verify the straightness of a stern tube on an oil tanker. It is critical that the stern tube be bored so that it matches the line of the propulsion shaft that will be passing through the center of it. The reason is that the next operation [...]

Dial indicators are ubiquitous in shaft alignment; they have been used (and misused) extensively for alignment throughout industry for many years. In the right hands, a very accurate alignment can be performed with dial indicators. However, even under the best of circumstances, it will be a time-consuming task with many traps and pitfalls for the [...]