Unfortunately during one of my first cuts tonight using the power feed table, the head almost immediately rotated 5 to 10 degrees. I thought it was a pretty conservative cut (~50 thou off of brass), but perhaps not with the RPM I was at.
Anyway, I tried my best to tram the head using the various indicators I found lying around… but I also did not want to move the vise or unbolt it. I have also never trammed a full size mill before, so I just sort of winged it on the process.
My guess is the mill is probably good enough now for a class, but definitely not precision work. I was getting about 1 to 3 thou of variance across the parts I was making, from side to side.
I will look into it. I wonder if something is off on the tightening from my previous head adjustment. Because it took a huge amount of force to move anything even slightly with just one bolt tightened. I can’t imagine knocking it like that with three bolts tightened; I would expect the tool to break first. What type of tool were you using and what type of cut were you making? What speed and what cutting fluid?
Ethan, I was using what I’m assuming is a facing tool, the same one you saw me use the other night when I machining brass. There was no tool damage as far as I could tell, and I continued to use the tool after doing my attempt at tramming the head.
I was engaging ~60% of the tool diameter, passing through roughly dead center, and the speed was set to H1. (I set it to H2 after that event.) The table was auto feeding at what I’d consider to be a slower speed.