Running the Mini Mill

colu41

colu41

Joined
Dec 24, 2014
Messages
1,598
I got my belt drive in today & installed. Runs incredibly smooth. Instead of practicing on scrap, I decided to go ahead and cut in the shoulders on one of my damascus blades. It surprisingly turned out really nice.
Anyways, I understand I am still very new to this machine, and I'm getting use to everything, but I'm not sure if I'm missing something with the controls. For one, the head drops like crazy! After cutting in the shoulders of the blade, I wanted to try and recess the tang right under the ricasso, just to make sure of a perfect fit guard. I noticed while raising the head to cross the tang, the brief second when release the lock, it dropped a good 1/8".

How do you make slight adjustments without having to worry about this? I don't have DRO, & the precision "knob" is not precise. :rolleyes: I can't find any videos or articles particularly focusing on precision adjustments. Just trying to figure this thing out.

PS: I think the Air Spring Kit & a Set of DROs will be on my list soon......
 
tighten the z feed a hair (not tight ) engage the micro feed knob then run it back til it taks up the slop. keeping the z fed screw semi tigh start workig the head fromthe micro fed nob

far less complex thesn it sounds
 
Yeah...there are several screws next to the Macro feed handles, tighten them down a bit...snug but not tight. Lube up the dovetail ways and off you go! DRO's are nice but not required. I use dial indicators on magnetic mounts for fine depth read.
 
Ok thanks guys. Last night I got out the magnetic dial and may start using it. Its a fun little machine just need to figure things out before I start breaking end mills.
 
Keep your X, Y, Z axis tight or under a bit of tension or you will get the wobbles :)

Keep the head nice and tight and you will avoid the breaking of end mills
 
dont remember the site anymore but they talked about almost fully breaking it down stoning a few things and getting it all back together fresh greese and all
i do know once i did that and got a bit of ware on it it was much easer to snug up and hold or make small movments
really thinkignabout building some way wipers and felts that i could put way oil on to keep things well lubed
 
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