Gallery, Projects and General > How to's
Milling machine tram tool
Darren:
I was getting on with my pillow blocks for my little engine build and suddenly I realised I had a major problem. When milling these little blocks something clearly was out of square. Very much out of square.... :(
Then I remembered this thread. Now then John, if you hadn't previously posted on this Tramming tool I would be in at the deep end pulling my hair out... :bang:
Thankfully yet again you have showed us the way... :thumbup:
I didn't make the same tool, but something similar that would allow me to get the job done in checking and squaring up my milling machine.
This is what I did, Started with a bit of aluminium bar and cleaned it up.
Drilled some 8mm holes, one for the mill head, one for the dial gauge and one again for the dial gauge to span my 4" vice. This should prove handy for re-setting the vice after I have used it at an angle.
Drilled and tapped 5mm on the other egde
Turning an 8mm spigot on a piece of 10mm Stainless Steel rod
Sum of parts, I was going to turn some thumbscrews until I realised I don't have a 5mm die, I'll order one and do this later.
Mounted on the milling machine, when checking my vice the spindle shaft will go right up the collet holder and the gauge can be mounted on top of the ally bar.
Note the reading is zero'd
Turn 90deg and the gauge didn't budge
However, as I suspected the front to back was out. By a whopping 8 thou. That's 8 thou over 160mm or 6.4".
Thinking that this was a bit much I put a piece of 1mm/0.0045" brass shimstock in here (A nice gift from my first visits to Johns place)
I left it sticking out a touch so I could retrieve it if need be.
All tightened up properly and re-measured. Left to right as before, no discernible difference. Front to back now down to 1 thou. Prob nearer 3/4 of a thou.
So a 1mm piece of shimstock = 7 thou change. That's 0.1249mm per thou.
To get rid of the last thou I need something approx 0.125mm thick. A coke can is 0.5mm, a rizla paper 0.3mm.
My question is this, is 1thou good enough cos I can't see how I'm going to get rid of it?
I'd appreciate a quickish reply as I'd like to carry on an re-assemble my vice so I can get back to what I started earlier, the pillow blocks :thumbup:
sbwhart:
Darren stick the paper in you'll compress it when you tighten it down, a little bit more grunt may do it.
Stew
Darren:
Thanks Stew, I'll go and try that now and report back :thumbup:
Darren:
Wow Stew, you're the man :thumbup:
One rizla, bit of tweaking the bolts and it's now spot on, I mean truly spot on in all positions :ddb: :ddb: :ddb:
Bernd:
Way to go Darren. :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb:
Bernd
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