New guy with a hobby mill

[Darrel]

Nice looking setup you've got there sir!

[samandothers]

Looks like fun isn't being had by all!

After cutting locust the mill should be broke in!

[CX3]

I always liked my manual mill beds about knee high for what it's worth. Congrats on a good looking rig

[MAF143]

We had about 5ish hours run time on the motor so we changed oil to get the "break in" oil out of there.  It looked a lot nastier than I thought it should.  Very metallic.  We will change it agian in another 5 hours to ensure that it is "cleaning up".  Probably gonna pop an hour meter on it to keep track better too.

First thing this morning we loosened all the frame bolts in the head and gave it some good wiggles to get it to settle down on the straightened, leveled track.  Seemed to help a lot, it rolls down the track and cuts much smoother now.  Thanks again goose63.  It would get a little rocking effect going on when in a large cut.  Nothing dangerous, but we just knew it needed to be more stable and this got rid of that.

We had started out with the standard 10° blade that came with it. Then after dulling it pretty quickly in locust we switched it out.  We had bought a 15 pack of WoodMizer 9° blades and noticed quite a bit of difference in setting the tracking when we switched brands.  Is this common when changing blade brands?  We have since switched between new WM 9° and not had to even touch the tracking.  Smooth sailing.  Of course being rookies we probably made adjusting the tracking for the first time more difficult than it really is...   :  We got if figured out, but I'm sure we looked like dumb and dumber for the first 15 minutes or so... 

I ground one of the blades to 7° to give that a try in the locust.  We haven't got but a couple cuts on that blade yet.  It seems to be a bit smoother, but being a rookie, I might just be talking myself into it.  I have heard talk of 4° being good in hard woods, but that works better on higher power mills.  We are at the bottom of the power end with 9.5 but we're willing to sacrifice a little speed for smoother cuts and blade longevity.  Thoughts from the experienced are welcome.

We need more experience with it to get to know it and the blades better.  We did spring for an automatic sharpener so we can keep fresh blades on it.  I like sharp tools and being able to change and experiment with the hook angle for different situations.  I will probably build a setter one of these days to ensure we keep the blades tuned up properly.  One of my past "careers" was grinding tools in a steel mill so I understand the importance of keeping the tools well tuned.

Thanks everone for the comments on our setup.  We are trying to get this thing working smooth and easy as possible for a low cost hobby mill.  The tips I learned from this site have been AWESOME in getting us up the learning curve WAY quicker than if we had to figure all this out on our own.

Great site, Great Crowd, thanks again.

Just curious, would adding weight (up to a point) to the head help stabilize it in the cut by reducing vibration?  Has anyone tried this?  I know in some of the literature, some of the brands (can't remember where I read it) bragged about the head being heavier than the competition and that leading to a smoother more stable cut.  I'm always looking for ways to improve on things.