How to ensure spindle is perpendicular to table?

[mwarning]

I noticed when doing some test cuts that the front and back edges of my pieces are not being cut square to the faces of the workpieces. The left and right side are fine, just not the front and back. I have yet to make my final spoilboard, so I haven’t surfaced or trammed anything yet, but I took a square to to the z-axis gantry plate and noticed that it isn’t square and I’m sure that’s responsible for the off-square cuts i’m seeing. It seems to me that even before getting into tramming and possibly shimming the spindle, I should try to improve this. How can it be adjusted? Anyone have any advice?

[jpnharris]

You might check out Clt49er posts, he recently asked the same question.

[mwarning]

Thanks for the response. I had a quick search for Clt49er posts talking about this but came up empty handed. I’ll do a deeper dive into it tomorrow morning when I have some time.

[jpnharris]

Tramming suggestions

Got a tramming gadget. I am seeing that my router is cockeyed diagonally. My front left is about .17” lower than the back right. I moved the machine to different spots. Flipped the mdf around and the tramming tool. Same results. Surfaced spoil board. Y rails are dead on parallel. What are the screws to adjust? Cant find a good tramming video specific to the longmill. Idc woodcraft kinda has a good one but only address the z movement left/right and not front/backwards. I see many others askin…

[_Michael]

The amount that you are off by may be within the adjustment of ‘bolt slop’, not sure what else to call it. I adjusted mine by using a bar clamp clamped to the x gantry and using that for leverage to hold the rail in the right position as I tightened up the bolts to the gantry plates on the end.

So for your current problem I would loosen the bolts at the ends of the x gantry and use the clamp to rotate the x rail back at the top and forward at the bottom as you re-tighten the bolts. I was able to do this by myself but it would probably be easier if you have someone to help. If you are solo you can try blocking and shimming under the clamp to hold the rail in position as you tighten everything back up. Use a clamp that has rubber pads or use a towel or something so you don’t mar up the rail.

You’ll also want to recheck squareness after you install and surface your waste board. Good luck, I hope this helps!

[mwarning]

Thanks! This is good advice. I never thought about adjusting the rail slightly. I can certainly give that a go. Seems like a more elegant solution to try and get it dialed in as close as possible first. If I ultimately have to shim the spindle mount while tramming, then fine, but yah, maybe this is a good first step.

Thanks again.