The other day, I finally got a Round Tuit for a project I've been meaning to do for yonks - a two-dial-indicator tramming tool. Nice easy build, got it done in a couple of hours, which was nice. It revealed what I thought - the mill was waaay out of tram (it's been moved to the "new" workshop, 4 years ago, and not trammed since).
So, a bit of wiggly-woggly, and within 20 mins I'd got it dead nuts (to the vice), which made me immensely pleased. Only when I tried a cut, it was all over the place... like I'd screwed my tramming tool up or something....
So, break it all down, make sure the tramming tool is properly calibrated, etc., and eventually I got it all sorted. But now I've taken the vice off the mill.... so, did a couple of test cuts on the X-axis, all good. Mounted the vice back on the mill (after deburring the bottom of it, and thoroughly cleaning it of every chip I could find).... way off again! So, obviously a slightly wonky vice (not a surprise - it's made of 10 year old Chineseium). Adding paper shims to suit has got me pretty close to level and flat in X and Y... but whilst working at it, I've discovered an annoying (and, I think, uncorrectable) problem: When I crank the Y-axis back, it rises - about 0.04-0.07mm over 5" of travel. Whilst this won't be too much of a problem in normal use (and, obviously, I've already been suffering with it for this long); but what's causing that? I assume it's wear somewhere... Can I shim my way out of the problem somehow? Or do I need to break the mill down, learn to scrape, and re-scrape it flat and true all over?