07-21-2014, 08:24 AM
The clapper. When I first ran the thing, I thought it was supposed to go clap! clap! clap! Chips were yellow and all was good. Or so I thought. What would happen is the slapping of the clapper would cause the tool head to drop, dig in and ruin stuff. The ram was a blur. That isn't the way to run it.
The ram. It moves faster on the return, and that's when the table feeds. It will cross over the previous tool path and hop up a little when it hits the edge. That happens in the last inch or so of the return stroke. I'd just as soon it did that in free air rather than over the workpiece.
As to the table sagging (rising?), my first impulse was to hit it with the cutter but at this stage of learning that probably isn't a good idea. I am curious as to what is causing it though.
My block of steel - the sides came within .004" of being parallel and I managed to kill 2 hours doing it. Tempting to walk away but there's no limit switch to turn it off, so I watched.
I got the feed to do just one click at a time - measured the travel and the chipload is .007" at that setting, about double what I'd like to have seen. The max is probably a half-inch. I've no idea how a guy would utilize it though. Seems like an iffy way to make serrations, if that's the plan.
Well, now I'm ready for an *Advanced* Dummy's Guide.
The ram. It moves faster on the return, and that's when the table feeds. It will cross over the previous tool path and hop up a little when it hits the edge. That happens in the last inch or so of the return stroke. I'd just as soon it did that in free air rather than over the workpiece.
As to the table sagging (rising?), my first impulse was to hit it with the cutter but at this stage of learning that probably isn't a good idea. I am curious as to what is causing it though.
My block of steel - the sides came within .004" of being parallel and I managed to kill 2 hours doing it. Tempting to walk away but there's no limit switch to turn it off, so I watched.
I got the feed to do just one click at a time - measured the travel and the chipload is .007" at that setting, about double what I'd like to have seen. The max is probably a half-inch. I've no idea how a guy would utilize it though. Seems like an iffy way to make serrations, if that's the plan.
Well, now I'm ready for an *Advanced* Dummy's Guide.