Hey All,

So, I got to tramming my Harbor Freight 44991 mini mill table last night (spindle to X-axis basically) and I used these two items to do it:

The Dial Test Indicator I used:



The Holder I used:



Now... I have got to say that I got this holder all assembled and the thing is just not a good piece of equipment. LMS has great products and I have dropped some serious coin on this site in the past 2 months. But... This DTI holder is very sub par. The whole thing moves and I just don't trust the readings I am getting... I reamed down all the connections on it and the whole holder moves very easily at the connection points and is just a sub par piece of equipment in my opinion after using it last night....

I also want to be able to use a full sized Dial Indicator as the Dial Test Indictor there does not have a wide range of movement and is lazer small / precise needle. I was noticing that I was bottomed out on it a couple times when starting tramming and was getting false readings that way too...

So! I am going to use this method found here at this site to tram my mini mill:



I need one question answered here... What is the tool held in the spindle here on that link? The vertical tool that is holding the perpendicular bar?? This would be a great article if this was explained... I just have not seen a good way yet to tram the mini mill. I want something that chucks up and doesn't move... Maybe bending a piece of bar stock even and chucking that up... But I still am clueless how to attach this dial indicator to that successfully...

Seems like an easy thing to do, but as a newbie machinist, this has left me scratching my head...

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Great site with good info!