fedex guy comes thru with my HF mini mill

[upTheHill]

not only did he drive thru 6" of snow to get to my garage / shop. :ups:
but he moved the 138# box by himself onto my workbench. my hero.:man:

now I just have to remove about 10# of that red crap :thinking:

 

[November X-ray]

Congratulations, please be sure and share some pictures when you get the chance!

 

[n3480h]

Got mine about 2 weeks ago. Cosmoline is our friend, lol. Make sure you tram the head, mine was off more than 1°, but its not hard to get it set right. You'll have fun with it.

Tom

 

[upTheHill]

can someone point me to a good how to for fine tuning the HF mill?
it has quite a bit of backlash, etc.

 

[PurpLev]

there's the user manual from LMS:
http://littlemachineshop.com/Info/MiniMillUsersGuide.pdf

that covers a bit more in depth on the mill. not sure to what degree thought in terms of helping you out

 

[DMS]

You're gonna want to do this before anything else (well you can adjust the gibs, but before you bother tramming the head, follow this tutorial)

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/f28/mini-mill-spindle-column-alignment-5337/

It seems like it's gonna be a PITA and take forever, but it was not that bad, I spent maybe 1.5 hrs aligning the head and then tramming the mill in X/Y. I would recommend grabbing some brass shimstock (I have always found hobby shops to be a good source near me). In a pinch heavy duty aluminum foil works great.

 

[upTheHill]

thanks guys

 

[Walt]

You're gonna want to do this before anything else (well you can adjust the gibs, but before you bother tramming the head, follow this tutorial)

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/f28/mini-mill-spindle-column-alignment-5337/

It seems like it's gonna be a PITA and take forever, but it was not that bad, I spent maybe 1.5 hrs aligning the head and then tramming the mill in X/Y. I would recommend grabbing some brass shimstock (I have always found hobby shops to be a good source near me). In a pinch heavy duty aluminum foil works great.

I have the Micro Mark version of this mill and was getting non-square cuts with my fly cutter before I tried this truing procedure. Specifically, the y-alignment of the spindle was off, and a piece of 0.005" brass shim between the spindle housing and the carriage made that alignment much better. I also worked to get the x-axis alignment correct and it seemed like I had it correct to +- 0.001".

However now I'm getting a convex cut with the fly cutter even after repeated adjustments to the x-axis tram. What has me stumped is the cut is convex regardless of which side on the x-axis I start from, or even if I crank the work piece (a 1x1x2" piece of aluminum) completely through the cutter's circle.

The x-y table on this mill is not very flat. I'm not sure what the best way to measure it is, but the "lands" between the slots show differences of up to 0.002" while I sweep my dial indicator around the table top around a ~ 2" radius circle. I set the mill base on a table saw and put a height gauge next to it. Moving the x-y table past the stationary height gauge, I found a 0.004" difference from end-to-end on the x-axis.

Looking at the comment above, I see that the poster said he trammed both x and y-axis for his mill. I've done the x-axis a bunch of times now, and I think I have it pretty close despite the problem I've described. But I have no idea how to do the y-axis tram.

Walt

 

[Walt]

Replying to my own post above because I think the problem (convex cuts from both sides of the spindle using a fly cutter) is solved.

I was using a variation on this post to square a work piece:

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php/4629-How-to-square-up-stock-on-the-milling-machine

It appears that the work piece is rocking in my vise, causing the fly-cut to be non-flat.

http://www.micromark.com/Quick-Lock-Milling-Vise-3-1and8-Inch-Capacity,8106.html

I used a 1" piece of steel round stock between the moveable jaw and the work piece (so that the work piece would lay flat against the fixed jaw), and positioned the fly cutter so that most of the cutting stroke came parallel to the x-axis

edit/ I meant to say, parallel to the y-axis, sorry for my confusion /edit

, or at a right angle to the vise jaws. Since the moveable jaw on this vise doesn't have a hold-down mechanism like the Kurt, I think the force of the cutter was able to move it up and down a few thousands of an inch each time the cutter tip sliced into the work piece. Since the milling machine spindle center was aligned with the center of the work piece, there was a slight change in the angle of the cutter as it passed over the surface, causing the piece to tip back as the cutter arc passed 90 degrees.

Could be my theory is all wrong, but eliminating the steel round from the vise and moving the fly cutter so the spindle axis was to the side of the work piece resulted in a flat, square cut on the first try. I didn't adjust the milling machine head tram either.

Walt

 

[upTheHill]

one of the bigger problems mine had was bad side to side movement of the table.
i pulled the table completly off and found a lot of crud and red paint on what should have been the polished ways the table rides on. could you have th same problem?