The old timer who fixed my spindle alignment with a feeler gauge

I was fighting a 0.005 inch runout on a Haas VF-2 for two days last month. Old Bob from the shop next door walked over, slid a 0.002 feeler gauge under the collet nut, and said 'try it now.' It ran dead true. Has anyone else had a simple fix like that save a whole job?

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thompson.tyler1d ago

I gotta push back on this a bit. A 0.005 runout after two days of fighting it sounds like you were way off the mark from the start. Bob's trick with a feeler gauge under the collet nut is a bandaid, not a real fix. If your spindle bearings or taper are that worn, that feeler gauge is just hiding the problem until it comes back mid-job with a bigger runout. I've seen guys do stuff like that and then blame the tooling when the chatter shows up later. You'd be better off spending that time swapping the collet chuck or checking the taper with a proper tester instead of relying on a shim.