Sharing an experience for the amusement, if not the edification of the other users here.
Back in November, I was trying to flatten some cutting boards with a 1" spoil board bit, and it became really obvious I had some serious tramming to do. I have never trammed my machine before.
Bunch of other stuff to do, finally I have time to look at it this week. I get myself a indicator and I watch Winston’s video four or five times. I get to the point where he says to loosen the screws on the X-axis, and find that… all 4 screws are super loose. Not falling out, but not tightened down at all. So my tramming problem most likely was the X-rail twisting as the cutter moved across the boards. So I tighten them up and looks pretty good. Stupid success.
Next step, since I am playing with this is the flatten the spoil board–another overdue task. The good news: As the cutter start to shave off 0.05", it’s looking great. No lines. Smooth as a table. The bad news is I start to have issues with the screws holding down the spoilboard–I have to start it again, and then I realize that one fo the four screws holding down the board is probably not countersunk enough that the spoil board bit will miss it. I’m trying to figure out to save this and suddenly about halfway through a simple pocket tool path, I see in Carbide Motion, “Lost connection.” Hmmm. Odd, but in truth, if I let the job finish, the bit would have hit the screw.
So… going to re-do the spoil board with a fresh piece of MDF. Which is what I should have done anyway. So that’s the fortunate failure.
