"maybe the problem is ..."

There are obvious problems with troubleshooting a machine of this type over the telephone. Primarily, the words used to describe the problem don't always translate into the proper mental picture on the other end of the phone. Even if you think you are describing the problem perfectly, actually being able to watch the action and observe all of the details surrounding the issue are of great help.

However, the telephone was our only option. As such, we heard a lot of "it could be", "i wonder if", and "can you try ".

The first attempt was a walk through of every adjustment and alignment possible on the mill. There were obvious issues to the raising and lowering of the head, probably due to whatever caused the mill head supports to become dislocated as we pointed out when we picked the unit up. Were we not halfway through a 10 hour drive, we may have passed and ignored the "it's no problem, just put it back together right" and waited for a different unit.

Since the weld broke where the winch pulls the head up, we kinda figured there was way more stress there than was appropriate. They just told us to take it to a welder or weld it ourselves. Afterwards, they walked us through removing the posts, checking them for straightness, and putting it back together. Ultimately, that issue was never fully resolved and the unit never worked as smooth as it should have. But, we had bigger fish to fry. It still wasn't cutting straight lumber.

So, they said that since the tracks were on a level base, that something was wrong with the tracks. I pointed out that each segment was crowned, causing the joint to be lower than the middle of each track. As such, a 12ft track consisting of two 6ft segments would have three low points (ends and middle joint) and two high points (halfway between each 6ft section). Since this would cause the wheels to not be level at all 4 points for the entire track, they decided to replace the track. UPS was now in the mix and we were waiting for delivery.