After dreaming of buying a mini mill for years, I spotted the HiTorque Mini Mill at LMS and after learning it had a belt drive (and taking a shot of courage) I decided to buy.That mill came in a few days ago and after a few flights of stairs now lives next to my toaster.
The unit arrived undamaged (connected only with two bolts to the bottom of the cheap plywood box) had just a light coat of oil on it vs the packing grease I'm accustomed to with stuff from china. I cleaned that off with mineral spirits and lubed the leadscrews and column gear rack with white lithium grease. Next I lubed the ways with mobile one 10w-30 (I would have used Mobile One vactra 2 oil if I could find it locally), and coated the other bare metal surfaces with a gun rust barrier spray (G96 seems popular).
The little machine shop manual did not mention breaking in the spindle, but I see the grizzly does so I'm doing that now. This has spurred a few questions which I hope you all could answer:
1. I plan to adjust the gibs, square the head, and then tram the mill next in that order. Is there anything else that the manual does not mention which I should do next (or in a different order?)
2. I have installed a collet +tool in the mill and tightened the draw bar with a wrench while holding the spindle with my hands only. I believe this is the proper way (although I feel I should be tightening it much more like a meathead!). Is this right?
3. While the tool does not appear to wobble noticeable and my dial indicator shows the bottom portion of the spindle has at least less than 0.001" of runout, the draw bar at the top of the spindle and the spindel nut is off center by a few millimeters. Is this ok?
Thanks all, I have a software/electrical background.. but virtually no mechanical background so these forums and some posters here have been a real help in getting started. As I go along in setting up, modifying, and then cnc-ing this mill, I hope to document it well.. hopefully it will be as useful as some of the other scattered info I have found.