Tramming the head on a mill

[Mayhem]

Generally I see people tramming their mill with the vise removed.  Is there any reason why I cannot leave the vise set up and tram off to one side?

[TomG]

Hey Darren,

It's best to tram with the table centered because they do sag a bit when cranked to one side, especially with weight on the table. It doesn't take much to affect the pattern on a milling cutter.

Tom

[PixMan]

I agree. It's also a matter of that's where you use the machine the most, by nature.

[Mayhem]

Thanks Guys - I figured that might be the case. I have borrowed a small rotary table, which I an going to use just off to the side of my vise for a specific project. Given that I have trammed the head to this spot, I'll bolt the RT down and finish the job.

I just realized that I cannot use my square or hexagonal collet blocks if I intend to use my collet chuck to hold the endmill, as I only have one ER32 collet nut. I've ordered a couple...

[stevec]

Darren, once you've mounted the "RT" matbe you should "tram" it , just to be sure.
I never work to those levels of precision so I wouldn't.  

Steve

[zmotorsports]

I have seen some people offset the vise to one side of the travel and mount their rotary table at the other extreme of travel but to be honest, it is not a big deal to dial in a vise after removing the rotary table.

For just tramming the head, again, it is not very time consuming at all to remove the vise, clean the table, tram the head and reinstall the vise.

Mike.

[Sunset Machine]

Most of the time I just put about 8 inches of something straight in the vice and eyeball it to the tee slots. I try not to always bolt things down in the middle of the table, so that vice gets moved a lot.

I have an old planer and like to read about them. They occasionally need the table surfaced to get rid of the hump in the middle. "Sag" on a mill. But a planer table is fully supported; it's not sagging. It was readily accepted that this effect is caused by repeatedly bolting things to the middle of the table. The tee-nuts compress and deform the iron table and cause it to warp. So don't do that to your mill either.