@Luke and Carbide.
I think that hazing and bit of clearance is important and much needed to the “pro-sumers”. I will also add that the machine in itself needs a stronger and squared frame.
@RichCournoyer, amazing work.
I noticed that your aluminium bed is not the full area of the base of your machine. Looking at the Nomad as a precedent, I was thinking that I would want to do the same (and then I noticed your photo) - see I am not crazy people.
What is the base of your machine currently made of, and how big is your aluminium table.
I DO have a full 1/2" thk (Black) Aluminum Bed (Table), but it isn’t flat enough for my needs (it had a 0.015" crater), so I bolted a 16" x 14" (0.022" thick) aluminum plate, and then meticulously, machined it flat within 0.0005".
How in the world did you get 5 tenths across the entire surface? I’m so jealous After about 7 hours of tramming and cutting I’m down to the typical wash board pattern with a .001" height change /2"… Something is causing nod in my traming that I can’t get rid of. Honestly I’ve given up and I’m waiting for my HDZ, hope the “tram” feature fixes that!
Here is the secret. First my rails are within 0.001 (4- corners) parallel to the aluminum table (Everyone should have this, when you set up the machine), then I take 4 light finish cuts (in no particular order) X, Y, +45º, and -45º (at the same depth).
That’s it. I think I had a short video on my IG showing the results.
PS Most of the table is with in 0.0002" I had one small area (think baseball) that was 0.0005" high and another (same size) 0.0005" low
HA, I think the person that was operating the equipment the day my XL kit was made might have had too much “cooling fluid” as nothing was square on any of the ends. I was able to salvage my Y rails on a Sharp mill… but the X was too long to get a good setup. Apparently I’m the only person that had this issue though, so my X rail is full of shim stock and bits of finger where it meets the side plates.
Maybe I was just unfairly blaming the X rail all this time. I’ll have to take another swing at it I only did X,Y no 45’s, and I never measured my corners… Thanks for the PRO Tip!
After about 7 hours of tramming and cutting I’m down to the typical wash board pattern with a .001" height change /2"… Something is causing nod in my traming that I can’t get rid of. Honestly I’ve given up and I’m waiting for my HDZ, hope the “tram” feature fixes that!