Help! > Tooling Review
Edge Pro Tram
Kim:
Over the last weekend (plus a few days) I was out camping with my extended family. We have done this every year for the past 30+ years with the exception of last year, due to Covid.
This year while we were camping, my family surprised me with a little retirement party! I guess this is the first time we’ve all been together since I retired a few months back. It was very thoughtful of them. They gave me a cute little paper train with a bunch of dollar bills rolled up in the tender (I guess this train burns money for fuel? ;D)
Anyway, the long and the short of it (besides that I have a sweet family :)) is that I used that money to purchase a tramming tool – the Edge Pro Tram.
I’ve seen these around and always thought “Who needs that – I can do it with the DI I’ve got!"
But it takes me a long time to tram, so I seldom do it. I’ve been meaning to re-tram the mill because I’m getting such a bad surface finish when I thin down stock. And it’s such a pain to do I never want to spend the time doing it.
I was reading up on how best to do tramming and came across several good videos. And in one of them, the person said something to the effect that while you don’t need a tramming fixture, it sure helps take the pain out of tramming. So, when I got my retirement train money, I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to get. :)
And here it is:
It comes with a very good case to keep it nice. It has a great little set of instructions on how to calibrate the device and then how to use it. Very simple. Even I could follow it.
So after calibrating, I went about tramming the forward/backward ‘nod’ on my machine. THAT has never been trammed before because there’s really no way to do it other than using a shim. I ended up putting a 0.0015” shim along the back of the place where the head bolts onto the column. Before tramming, it was about 2-3 thou out (across 5”). Now it’s only out about a half a thou over the same.
Turning it 90 degrees, I was able to tram the left/right rotation of the head VERY quickly. I’ve done this before, but NEVER quickly! And what’s super cool, I could see it changing as I tightened the bolts.
From the videos I also picked up that I should be locking my Z-axis when I tram – that made a pretty big difference too! I’ll be locking that down from now on when I’m making any precise cuts. It changes the tram (left/right – is that called Yaw?) by almost 0.002”! I never realized that before!
It was super easy to do with this setup. I think it took maybe 5 minutes to tram both directions. I can’t believe how easy it was.
No more fussing with trying to read the indicator backward – trying to make it read ‘the same’ when you turn it from one side to the other. It was amazingly simple. It really did take the pain out of tramming.
I know I sound like a commercial for them, but wow, it made such a difference. I can’t believe I’ve put off buying one for so many years.
Yes, you can tram without one. But I can’t tell you how much simpler the whole process was with this gizmo. If you’ve been thinking about getting one, I can heartily recommend it. Or if you want to make one, go for it. I just decided that I’d buy one. (I would have had to purchase two dial indicators anyway, so that’s about half the cost right there).
Anyway, just wanted to share my new retirement tool with you all, and let you know it has made my retirement easier already!
Kim
crueby:
Nice!
Is there any calibration of the tramming tool itself needed, or is that all set from the factory?
propforward:
Very nice acquisition! I have one - really makes tramming so much easier!
What a thoughtful gift.
Kim:
--- Quote from: crueby on August 11, 2021, 11:53:49 PM ---Nice!
Is there any calibration of the tramming tool itself needed, or is that all set from the factory?
--- End quote ---
Hi Chris,
Yes, you need to calibrate the tool before using it. It's quite easy to do (even I could do it). You set one dial to a specific height, then without changing anything, you rotate the Pro-Tram 180 degrees and set the other dial to the same height. It might sound complicated based on my poor explanation, but it's really not. They tell you how to do it and it really is quite easy and makes perfect sense.
Kim
Kim:
--- Quote from: propforward on August 12, 2021, 12:20:22 AM ---Very nice acquisition! I have one - really makes tramming so much easier!
What a thoughtful gift.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Stuart!
Yes, very thoughtful. You're probably one of the people on this forum that I've seen use it and always thought "why spend good money on something when I can already tram with what I've got". Now I know!
Thanks :)
Kim
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