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My 30 years old mill is still pretty straight!

John Conroy

John Conroy

member
Premium Member
I checked the tram on my Ferro mill today. I have been using it for about 4 months now and wanted to check and see if anything has moved. I told a buddy of mine that when I assembled the machine and checked the tram in June it was out less than .001" in a 9.5 inch 360 degree circle. He said bull-s**t, no 30 year old machine as neglected as that one would be that straight. Today I took a video of the tram check. No adjustments have been made since June and the only thing I did to prepare was to set knee height correct for the indicator I used and tighten the knee gib lock handles. The indicator is mounted to an arbor in the spindle and the machine was put in neutral to allow the spindle to turn easily.
Sorry for the crappy camera work but the result is pretty clear in the video. My buddy now owes me a case of cold ones!

 
Rough as it may look at first all a lot of old machines need is a little love and adjustment. That's going to be an awesome mill. Do you have a backlash eliminator on it?

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No backlash eliminator, as a matter of fact I have never even seen one and had to Google it. Both X and Y axis lead screws have opposing nuts so the backlash is adjustable and I have installed a 3 axis Sinpo DRO so the small amount of backlash there is does not affect accuracy.

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Nice. The backlash eliminator isn't for accuracy though, it's a knob you turn to spread the adjustable brass nuts apart on the fly. It's just so that you can do a climb-milling finishing pass for a better surface finish.

Nice DRO! They sure make life easier.

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For a 30 year old mill it is in perfect shape! Did you do a lot of restoring, or was the previous owner just that great with the machine... No dings in the paint, etc! wow!
 
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