[feederic]

I use a granite floor tile to tram. They are ground with extremely accurate machines. Any deviation would show as a defect. They are cheap at a flooring store. They allow you to do a 360 degree sweep of 12". I can not tell any difference in thickness when measuring it on my granite surface plate. Great tool and inexpensive. Good to place sandpaper on to make an item flat too.

Great advice! I did pick up some scrap granite at our industrial center of town a great price. I'm sure this piece will prove invaluable down the road.

[feederic]

Well I finally am back on my two feet walking again and got back to work on the mill. I bought another rod other than the cheap drill rod I was using and things went much smoother. I was able to tram the head to the column side to side in about an hour which probably isn't too bad for my first time. Its actually not as bad as I thought

I ordered up a tsunami bilge pump, threw it inside a pond filter and that inside of a 5 gallon bucket for flood coolant. Everything is wired up and ready to go! I built an enclosure that drains off to one side.

Out of curiousity, and this might sound like a dumb question, but if I wanted to throw a Nordic Track or BF30 motor on my mill will I need to make new motor mounts?

[Fastest1]

Yes and wait til you have the motor in you hand as they are different diameters. Mrcodewiz has the mount for the 3.8 Proform, you would need a KBIC or similar to control it too.

[feederic]

Yes and wait til you have the motor in you hand as they are different diameters. Mrcodewiz has the mount for the 3.8 Proform, you would need a KBIC or similar to control it too.

Gotcha! I haven't ordered a motor up, but they seem cheap on ebay and would be a fun project.

[feederic]

Since I've had so much time to just sit lately, I've been wondering if there are steps I've missed during the setup or conversion process. One topic that I've seen is preloading A/C bearings. I do have A/C bearings on all three axes. What is the normal method to preload these bearings?

[feederic]

I was measuring the tram in my earlier posts.

[Mad Welder]

Glad to read your foot is back to normal, have you any pics of your flood enclosure and bilge pump....I've reverted back to my 12VDC original bilge pump too, and as you have your axis wired you could simply draw and machine a new motor mount plate for what ever motor you decide to use...

[feederic]

I will try and snap a few. The enclosure is just epoxy painted plywood sealed with RTV. The pump itself sits in a pond filter with the 1/4" line come out for the coolant nozzles, and that assembly inside of a home depot bucket.

Nothing all that remarkably fancy. I've been seeing what some members are able to do with some 80/20 and corrugated plastic. I plan on getting a Gorilla workbench and building an 80/20 assembly around it at some point.

I'm keeping my eyes out for a stronger motor. Is 2-2.5hp about the right range? I also have a friend that welds and am thinking about having him weld up some steel plates to bolt the column to the base for some rigidity.