Aligning cross table is driving me crazy. Ideas?

[pigifly]

Hi all.
I got the Mill/Drill System BFW 40/E from proxxon ( www.proxxon.de ), which basically is a column drill with a cross table and a motor head.
I'm trying to align the cross table to the drill stand, but this job is driving me crazy. Unfortunately neither the cross table, nor the base of the column drill have some reference point to align easy.
On the KT150 ( the cross table ) the so called "machined Tslot" are not really well machined so I can't use this as reference for the job.
It seems that the only good reference point could/should be the inner part of Tslot.

Do you have some idea, experience or what else to achieve this aligning job ? I feel very lost at present ( is three evening I'm trying to aling the table or the vise )

Or, at least could a good vise alignement compensate the poor table alignement ?

T.I.A.

Pigi

[nogeso]

Hello

I really dont see your problem - there is as far as I know no need for aligning the cross table to the column. You will always use a round tool in the router and all movement of the slides at cross table would always be perpendicular to the tool. What you might need to look into is that the Z-axis should be square to the table surface of the Crosstable. The easies way to do that is to use a dial gauge on a little arm mounted in the router chuck and turn that around to see if the column is square to the base - if not you have to tram either the column or the table.
There is also one other thing that you could check - check that X-axis is square to the Y axis - normally you cant fix that on such a crosstable because there are no adjusment for that kind of errors on a manufactured unit, but you should actually rely on the manufacturer, and I do think a company like Proxxon would produce a well aligned cross table.

regards

Geir Soland
Norway

[Klox]

When i was in the army we had a saying: "The bigger the problem, the bigger the hammer" LOL!
Sorry could help pulling your leg out of aligment! Oops! Sorry again!

Now seriously as Geir said some machine may have a slight alignment problem due to manufacturing that can't be rectified (easily).
You can mount a vice and "clock" it up so that's it's true.

Klox

[IJ.]

I agree with Klox on this I always "clock" my vice or fixtures anyway as I don't trust anything adjustable to not "self adjust" !

[pigifly]

It took me some time, and a lot of try to understand where was my error, but yes, Geir, your are absolutelly rigth.
I was thinking about the misalignement of the cross table, because I wasn't ( and still I'm not ) able to "clock" the wise.
I suspect that my vise does not "clock" well, but it's not a good vise, so I'm thinking to change it.

Thanks to all for the good advice.

Pigi