Alignment

Today I took a little time to level the spindle to the base. I did this by making sure the height of the spindle to the table was the same at all four corners of the table. Beginning near the origin, I lowered the spindle until the end mill was just above a piece of wood. Then I jogged the spindle to all four corners and adjusted the bearing pipe supports as needed. If the bit dragged into the wood, I would raise that corner up.

While adjusting a corner, the screw in the adjustment block stripped its threads out and broke off a piece of the super-glued wood (which was supposed to harden the wood so the threads would hold better). My dad and I made a new block by using a scrap piece of wood from cutting out router clamps. We took the center circle and made it into an adjustment block.

Old vs. New

New adjustment block.

I did get the machine reasonably level but since the center of the machine has a little sag (I would say ~1/50 of an inch) from the unsupported rails the alignment isn't perfect.

I hope to test the accuracy and precision of the machine with some simple shapes. I also intend to use a slower feed rate.

On another note, my 1/4" end mill and 1/8" ball mills from eBay came in a couple days ago. I should soon get the 1/8" end mill. I also received some plastic drawer cabinets for sorting my haphazard electronics workbench.