# My Pm727.



## tweinke (Sep 5, 2016)

Well time to post a picture (if I can figure it out) and some first impressions. Went the rout of building my own stand which turned out ok although two more inches taller would be ok.


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## dieselshadow (Sep 5, 2016)

Looks pretty good. Do your casters have locks on them? Is the mill bolted to the stand?


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## tweinke (Sep 5, 2016)

Got so excited that I got the picture posted I never finished my comments. I built my stand from 2x2 tubing and shot for about 41 inch table height.I do have a set of hockey puck levelers to install as soon as I have them finished. A nice set of drawers will go under the mill also.  After a good cleaning and spindle break-in I changed the oil in the head. Some silver particles but no real huge amount of them. I already have a Shoptask 3 in 1  so I decided to machine the excess tee nuts from my hold down kit to fit the 727. One thing I did find was that the center t slot is narrower then the outer two. Boy what a difference from the Shoptask,I really like the 727 smooth and capable of decent cuts.The money spent was well worth it. just knowing I do not have to switch from lathe to mill and back sure makes projects more fun. I think I will built another Touch DRO set up for this machine because it seems to fit my purposes well. So all in all I am very satisfied with my PM727.


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## tweinke (Sep 5, 2016)

Dieselshadow yes the mill is bolted down to the stand, the casters do not have locks which is not realy an issue once the leveling feet are down. I do not have a lot of extra  space in my garage so i did keep the stand mobile to be able to clean or rearrange the shop area.


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## dieselshadow (Sep 5, 2016)

I totally understand that need my friend. 

With the leveling feet, it should stabilize the machine and make it smoother.


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## tweinke (Sep 5, 2016)

Nothing like having 10lbs of shoot in a 5lb box.


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## tweinke (Sep 7, 2016)

Made up a spindle square similar to the one sold  by Edge . Was off .005 in x, adjusted that out easy peasy. checked for nod .0065 . hmmm what to do? didn't have much time left to spend but thought about it a minute decided to check column bolts of course no allen wrench at home to fit. will bring one home from work tomorrow and a torque wrench. Decided to try one more thing, loosened the back base bolts holding it to the stand now at .003. I did not crank the bolts for the stand very tight to start with so as an experiment I tightened them till the lock washers just reached full crush then the nod started to increase after that. Those back two bolts through the base are far enough forward that there is no base casting touching the chip tray and I think you can flex the base pretty easy. Will play with that a bit more tomorrow. Tried the front bolts and no noticeable indicator movement. anyone else noticed this?


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## jdell42 (Sep 7, 2016)

I will check this later today and confirm but I dont believe I had that issue.  I did have to adjust the nod (y-axis) by putting in a few layers of aluminum foil under the front of the column.


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## lpeedin (Sep 7, 2016)

You have to figure out if the nod is due to the column being out of squareness of simply due to the head/spindle being out.  What I did was to get a 6" machinist square and clamp it to the table.  Then put a dial test indicator in the spindle.  The you zero our the indicator with the head all the way down and everything locked down snug.  Then raise the head until you get to the top of the square, snug everything down again,  and check the dial test indicator.  Do this for both the x and y axis.  Do it several time to get an average reading in each axis, the more times the better for the average.   The reason you need an average is that there may be minor differences in readings due to inconsistencies in how snug you make the lock down knobs on the head each time you move it.  

Once you have measurements for both axis, then you can start the shimming process.   I used layers of aluminum foil.  Then when you have the column properly shimmed, you can move to squaring up the spindle / head by means of using the spindle square you made.  Like you stated, getting the x axis in tram is easy, and it is made easier if you made some tramming aids that attach to the head.  Here is a link to the type of tramming aids that I made and installed.  This is from the Hoss Machine website:  http://www.migration.g0704.com/Projects2.html#way  This definitely makes it easy to tram the x-axis.   If there is still nod present, you will need to shim the head at either the top or bottom, between the spindle head and the carriage base, depending on which way the nod is off.  You just need to loosen up the three lock down bolts where the head rotates, so that there is enough room to get some shim material in there.  Then tighten things back up.  

I hope this makes sense.  Let me know if it doesn't. 

Thanks,


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## tweinke (Sep 7, 2016)

3d, all makes sense, I have watched Hoss's vids on tramming several times. I am waiting till the weekend to borrow a good machinists square and then will check the column. basically I would say the mill is as good as it gets without going further. I did re run my experiment with tightening the rear two bolts and it does effect the amount of nod that I measure. I think I need to be sure it is not caused by the stand. will asses that this weekend also. I used the flattest part of my garage floor to weld the stand components so not overly accurate but did lay a straight edge across all directions and was pretty good. Tonight after I checked the column bolts with a torque wrench my nod as measured with the spindle square was at .001 in 6 inches that is the span of the tool I made. also if I push backwards on the column I can measure about .0015 deflection. at this point checking column square then starting over with the rest seems to be the best idea. I do not know how tight a spec I should shoot for so comments on that would be good.


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## lpeedin (Sep 9, 2016)

.001 over 6" is pretty dang close.  I don't know that you will be able to get it any closer than that.  Once you get the column itself sorted out, you won't have to worry about it again.  Then all you have to worry about is the head itself.


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## lpeedin (Sep 9, 2016)

.001 over 6" is pretty dang close.  I don't know that you will be able to get it any closer than that.  Once you get the column itself sorted out, you won't have to worry about it again.  Then all you have to worry about is the head itself.


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## robotwizard (May 20, 2018)

tweinke said:


> Well time to post a picture (if I can figure it out) and some first impressions. Went the rout of building my own stand which turned out ok although two more inches taller would be ok.



What happened to the pictures?


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## tweinke (May 21, 2018)

Well I don't realy have a good excuse for not posting a picture of the stand other then I never could figure it out on the old forum software. I ended up adding a maple top that was 1 1/2 thick and that did get to a better height. The stand is on 4 inch casters and is leveled on four hockey puck leveling feet. As for the mill, still happy after getting the tram set like me and Lee talked about. A bigger mill would have been nice but money and space dictated the 727. In my opinion its a very nice machine and can work well with common sense ( not a Bridgeport ). The variable speed model would be the cats meow though.


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## SSage (Jun 1, 2018)

I only use mine to make small things for firearm related stuff, its been a real work horse though. I've drilled many 1" and smaller holes to a 1" depth with my PM727m, so far the motor has handled it fine. The 727 is just big enough for my needs, a 1/2" 4 flute end mill pushes it hard in steel. I have found the limits when milling, learned right away to purchase steel close to the size I need. I work with 1" thick 1018 bars often and it gets the job done. My first mill, its so nice to not need an outside machine shop anymore. I can finally make most things I want at home now. I bought the PM high percision 4" vice and its pretty good for the money, I'm happy with it overall, nice bench top unit.


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## robotwizard (Jun 3, 2018)

What did the overall height of the stand end up at? 
Variable speed can always be added easily. There are Leeson 3 phase motors that will drop right in and of course add a VFD


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## tweinke (Jun 3, 2018)

I ended up with 34 inches to the bottom of the chip pan. I wouldn't argue if the stand was an inch or two higher but where it is now does start to be a reach with the head at the top of the travel to loosen the draw bar. I'm 5' 8" if that helps. I used a very scientific method to get my stand height, held my arm out and pretended to crank the x hand wheel while the wife made a measurement. That was loosely based on what the guys here said. Hope this helps you.


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## STIKBENDR (Jun 4, 2018)

Can you post a pic of your mill on the stand.  I am getting ready to build my stand.  I am 6'2" and don't want to build it too short.


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## robotwizard (Jun 4, 2018)

Thanks. I used the same method to determine height for the stand on my Pm1127, but the end result seems a little high. I'm 6'2"  and I measure 45" to elbow center. I was thinking 33" for stand height (for PM727) so it sounds like I'm on the right track. Besides considering comfortable height for turning knobs, I also consider having good visibility of part and machining operation to be important. Hadn't thought about accessing drawbar bolt, but I hope to make drawbar pnuematic as well as CNC control of leadscrews in future.


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## tweinke (Jun 4, 2018)

Well here is a picture of the almost finished stand, I will be adding three drawers to hold tooling and what not. As you can see my shop is a disaster due to too many projects and not enough time.


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