Not squared away

[praetor]

I just found out my X2 table isn't quite parallel to the mill head, I've trammed everything in before any millin projects but found my dti is also off and only found the table off with a reliable lastword dti after checking in for head/table parallelism. Now does anyone know of a video on youtube or elsewhere on tramming the mill head parallel to the table? I may be tramming the mill wrong:

dti in the drill chuck, touching the dti to the table and moving the X right and left to get a square read on the dti, turn the dti 180 deg. from opposite point [of read] move the Y to center of (X) table and repeat above process...correct?

A friend told me to swing the dti over the whole of the table...wouldn't this hit the gaps of the t slots possibly causing a misread?

[cjdavis618]

I do a couple of different things with my mill.

I use the SPI "dual indicator" like this one. This is the thing that I use the most to tram with now.
http://cgi.ebay.com/SPI-Spindle-Squa...QQcmdZViewItem
(When it came in, one of the needles had come off the indicator, so I replaced them with new starrett models that were .0005 instead of the original .001 models.)



I also use a test indicator on a spindle mount. When using this, it is best to have a set of "no hole" 123blocks or parallels to read against since they are high precision and there are no gaps in the reading. While that method works great, I still feel it is very error prone.

As for the gaps in the table, I ended up buying a granite surface plate that was 2" x 12" x 9". When I picked it up, I measured it on a bigger indicator plate and found it was .0001 off from corner to corner. So no problem using that block on top of the mill bed. For $20, that was a good way for me to get a good solid reading on my tram in all directions. Making sure that there was ample room to get good readings from all of my tools.


As for Videos, I haven't looked on youtube or anything. But I have rented the video from here. http://swarfrat.com/TrammingMill.htm

The entire set is based on the X2 mill and they are very helpful. I would highly recommend watching them. You can rent the entire package from his site and they have extremely fast shipping. It was an eye opener for me to see some of the things he does with an X2.

[praetor]

Thanks cjdavis618, I've seen this tool before...probably in digits cnc build thread, but forgot all about it. This is a cool tool. I wouldn't need to turn this thing on the table (what with the t slots and all), would I? After getting this tool I could just do what you did with the granite slab...I do have a mic6 plate I can use...maybe I can turn this tool after placing the mic6 plate on the table?

[cjdavis618]

Nope, wouldn't have the turn it, and it could be read accurately when you are actually tramming the head, instead of locking down and "trying again" with the other method.

This device makes it really easy to find the tram all around. I ended up having to shim my column .001 to get mine back accurate.

The only thing to be aware of is that if your table has lots of groves, dings or anything that would throw the plate off, that would need to be smoothed down level first.

[praetor]

Aww, thanks cjdavis618, this really helps now I am going to purchase this tool, if it's that good it makes all the difference in the world.

Hey, thanks a lot for all the info, guy...it really, really helps..now to order the tool and videos and then get to work getting everything squared!

Again, thanks for everything.

[cjdavis618]

Sure thing. It's all part of the learning process. We all have to go through it at some point.

Were all looking for that "better mousetrap" .. lol And this works great for me. Thought I would share.

[praetor]

...lol...that is a good way of putting it, cjdavis618.