Shorty Drill Press not perpendicular to floor, any ideas?

[dusty]

Oh, and I think that photo ended up sideways too? Making the confusion even more confusing.

No, the previous photo is not sideways.

Mike 1.jpegMike 4.jpg

But what did add to the confusion was one shows the Wixey on the Way Tubes while the other is on the Bench Tube. Thus meaningless for this discussion and I fell victim to it.

[dusty]

No, the previous photo is not sideways.

Mike 1.jpegMike 4.jpg

In the second pic the Wixey is attached to what would be the bottom of the way tube on a standard Mark setup in vertical mode. So the angle it is reading is not what we'd call the rotation angle, or how far the ways are rotated. A couple ways to understand that:

A) If you actually rotated the ways with the Wixey here it would read ~180 at the horizontal position because it was zeroed on top of the bench tubes. So the actual angle of bench tube to way tube is 180 - 91.3 = 88.7.

B) If you moved the Wixey to the other side of the tube it would read 88.7 degrees.

C) From the viewer's perspective, the way tubes are rotated CCW (aka anti-CW) but the Wixey is showing CW rotation.

- David

What also escaped me the first few times I studied this pair of images was that the Wixey was zeroed on the Bench Tube and then moved to the Way Tube without acknowledging that there is a 1.1 or 1.2 degree delta introduced by the Base Arm. This is displayed two or three times in other sets of photos.

A previous image shows the Wixey zeroed on the Bench Tube

Mike xx.jpg (239.97 KiB) Viewed 1023 times

PS: 9/18/2021 The Wixey is resting on the casting and if you visually examine that casting you will readily see that that surface will not be level with the tubes. It should not be used during this alignment/test.

[JPG]

That 1.3° has nothing todo with way tube rotation(unless thee assumes that surface is perpendicular to the tube.

[DLB]

That 1.3° has nothing todo with way tube rotation(unless thee assumes that surface is perpendicular to the tube.

On two samples I measured that surface at about 0.8 degrees the other direction. With Wixey zeroed on the Bench tube. Neither parallel with the base tubes nor perpendicular with the way tubes. It was a useful data point, I thought, because it narrowed the possibilities of what could be wrong/different on the OP's machine. Used in conjunction with his measurements on the base casting flats, it points conclusively (IMO) to an abnormal Base Assembly. Neither of those surfaces are precision surfaces, but they provide information.

- David

[JPG]

+1

[JPG]

FWIW the angle cube works the same inverted(even allowing zeroing it out up side down or on either side). Always inverts as it passes 90°.

[dusty]

Now that we have all become so much better informed about the capabilities of our digital angle gauges, it should be a simple task to verify whether or not the Way Tubes pass through vertical when going into drill press mode.

Are you all ready to vote? I'm not.

As for mike's (OP) issue, I hope he is now settled. I did all that I could but failed miserably. Only good thing is I learned a lot about the applications of a tool I have been using for years.

I would also suggest to all, when using others photos to glean information, view them very thoroughly.

[dusty]

The issues presented by this thread have been very interesting and (for me) informative. It has also shown me that some of my measuring techniques and habits need to altered if the data is to be meaningful.

Example: There are no surfaces (other than inside of the bores) that can be used (for reference) or compared if one expects to get accurate readings.

I do hope that Mike checks back in to read all of this. I made some hard statements throughout this thread that can not be substantiated. One such statements was that the Way Tubes pass through vertical on the way to drill press mode. I do not believe that can be shown to be true. It may be but then again it may not be.

Take a few readings without zeroing the angle gauge and compare them to the others. Ninety degrees off set from the Ways does not mean vertical because zeroed on the Ways does not mean horizontal. Get out the plumb bob.

The Double Tilt may be an exception. Spend some time evaluating what supports the tie bar end of the Ways when in the horizontal position. How unpredictable are those surfaces when being compared to Base Arm Assembly? Unpredictable enough to void any hard statement one might make.

[JPG]

To me 'vertical' when referring to the SS in 'raised' position does not mean 'plumb'. It merely means an alternative positioning from 'lowered'(not to be confused with 'level').

I think we have demonstrated that the ss rotates just short of 90° when changed from 'lowered' to 'raised'. Whether that was an intentional design detail we likely will never know for sure.

We have been guilty of making conclusions re the amount of rotation based upon questionable measuring and thinking.

This thread has been quite enlightening regarding the angle cubes and the actual angles.

I too hope Mike has been here recently as without his insistence we would have never corrected our misconceptions.

I am curious how much grinding it required for him to achieve 'perpendicularity'.

[dusty]

To me 'vertical' when referring to the SS in 'raised' position does not mean 'plumb'. It merely means an alternative positioning from 'lowered'(not to be confused with 'level').

I think we have demonstrated that the ss rotates just short of 90° when changed from 'lowered' to 'raised'. Whether that was an intentional design detail we likely will never know for sure.

We have been guilty of making conclusions re the amount of rotation based upon questionable measuring and thinking.

This thread has been quite enlightening regarding the angle cubes and the actual angles.

I too hope Mike has been here recently as without his insistence we would have never corrected our misconceptions.

I am curious how much grinding it required for him to achieve 'perpendicularity'.

I agree that the rotation is less than 90 degrees but by fractions of a decimal point (on the order of 89.8 degrees). That would be under rotated. If 1/32" is removed from the handing pad, .3 degrees of rotation would be added; 3/64" would result in ,5 degrees of added rotation.