Hi, I'm Mike Corliss from Tormach. Today I'm going to show you how to...
..put a fourth axis to the machine and line it up to the machine.
And after we have the fourth axis bolted up and trued up...
...we'll bolt the three jaw chuck on it and double check it with the test bar.
one thing
with all your fourth axis, they're going to come with alignment keys.
It's a good idea to use those, especially...
...if you are going to use a tail stock.
this one doesn't have the keys on there.
so I can go an align it in both planes, X and the Z plane.
but it is a good idea to use them. I don't like using them, except for fourth axis work.
Ok, I've set the fourth axis in here.
...and I've just snugged down the..
...holddown clamps..
...to hold it down to place.
give us a place to start for indicating
and I tilted the head up at ninety degrees...
and uh... snugged down the clamp bolts on the back side.
Now, we'll run our indicator across the face.
Zero the indicator.
I move the indicator off the face so it doesn't bounce off the grooves.
Then I'll use the back clamp,,,
...as the pivot point.
So I'll loosen up the one in the front and the one on the back.
Tap it into zero.
Then we'll re-tighten the clamps.
Now if you're using the alignment keys in the...
the base of the fourth axis..
...it would be really close.
Without the alignment keys in there it's just like putting a vise on.
Swing my indicator off.
Now this time I'll loosen...
...this corner.
And the back again.
Now we're getting pretty close.
Still about a half thou off.
Now the fourth axis is trued up to the X and Y plane of the machine.
Now we are going to check to...
see how close we are..
..to being square to the Z axis.
Zero the indicator up on top here.
We're off about five thousands.
it's uh...
Ya, it's enough that I'm going to shim it up.
We just have to make sure we put the shim in the right spot.
So right now the head is sitting like this. So we'll put a 5 thousands piece of shim stock...
into the back side
and that will...
hopefully bring us right up to where we need to be.
It's probably going to take ten thousand. We'll start with five.
We'll use this.
I just removed the clamp off the back. I'll leave the front two tight.
We shouldn't lose our X, Y orientation.
And then lift up on the back side.
You should be able to lift it up enough to get the shim stock under.
so it's going to take a ten thousands shim.
The distance that we are indicating across is about half the length of our base so
actually when it's at five thousand I should have used ten.
It's kind of when I was guessing but now we know.
that's pretty close
over five inches is off about four tenths, so that's probably close enough.
Now to mount the three jaw chuck on this tilting six inch head,
uh...we can mount it just as it's sitting here
but it's going to get tough to
...slide the...
...t-nuts in.
so what I'm going to do, since it's a tilting head I'm just going to lay it flat...
...and then bolt the chuck on.
I've got the three jaw bolted on,
I have the test bar clamped in,
we can run the indicator on it and see...
...how good it looks.
Now that I have the three jaw chuck bolted on... and using the test bar
indicate along the test bar I find that I'm off...
about five thousands in...
the area that I indicated.
so basically I can pull my shim stock out.
and all that variances, it could be...
the chuck itself, it could be a little bit of the adapter plate,
but it's probably most likely in the hard jaws themselves, that's probably
where we're picking up a little bit of variance.
so it's a good
if you are going to use the face plate
to indicate the fourth axes with the face plate,
if you are going to be using the three jaw chuck
to indicate either using your workpiece or a test bar like this,
that's the best way to
...to align it.
There's a ten thousands shim,
in the base of our fourth axis
just guessing it's approximately ten inches.
and the area we're indicating here is about four inches.
So whatever variance we have here we almost have to double it
for the shim or...
...in this case to remove the shim.
Taking the shim out pretty straightened it out.
So that's the basics ion how to align...
the fourth axis with your machine,
it's important to indicate either your work piece or...
a test bar,
in whatever you are using for work holding, if its a three jaw, or four jaw, or if you are
bolting it right to the face plate
...of the chuck. It'll go
once you have it dialed in it'll repeat really well for you.