Spent 4 hours leveling a drum shell, then found the real issue

Kept chasing a wobble on a 12-foot tank seam in Gary, checked the shell with a 6-foot level every pass and it read true. Turns out the base plate under my jack was sunk a half inch, moved to solid ground and the whole job went square in 20 minutes. Anyone else fought a leveling problem that was actually the floor underneath?

1 comments

1 Comment

evand654d ago

Spent 4 hours leveling a drum shell" got me because I did almost the same thing on a tank job last spring. The part about the 6-foot level reading true is what bugs me though. A level only checks the spot you put it on, not the whole shell, so if the base is sunk, you're basically leveling the air above the dip. You might have been better off using a string line or a laser across the full length to catch that low spot sooner. Not saying the 6-footer is useless, but it can lie to you when the ground under your jack is the real problem. I had a similar fight with a plate compactor once, moving it two feet changed everything. Good on you for figuring it out though, that's the kind of thing that makes you want to check the floor first every time.