Level may not be flat! Frame flatness issues
Regarding your quilting Frame - Level may NOT be flat....
Continuing the search for a frame that is so level and flat a sensitive Free Motion Quilter feels nothing but smooth motion.
Note - this is a long post - if you aren't having smoothness issues with your frame or only use a computerized system such as Pro-Stitcher feel free to move along....
I walked into the wife's quilt room today to find the a sticky-note on the Frame indicating "the machine is fighting me "here" – please fix it!
On March 6th I serviced the Amara and spent a couple of hours leveling, aligning, and flattening the Studio 2 Frame and at the end of the process the tracks were both level and flat across the entire 12-foot length both front and rear within 1 mm. She had two of the most productive weeks ever on the Amara going from 12.6 million stitches to 14.5 million with no frame smoothness issues until the Quilt of Valor that she was quilting today. Lots of use in a short period of time. What changed?
How can something be "level" but not "flat" - several things - first a spirit/bubble level relies on a human eye to read and interpret, and reading accuracy can be compromised by reading at an angle, how/where the level is placed on the frame, and the type/length of level. Even if the level is accurately read and where it is placed is "flat" - meaning the surface has no dips, humps, bumps, cracks, etc. that could cause it to not be smooth, those problems could exist underneath it.
I put a three-foot level on the frame and no matter where I put it the bubble was exactly in the middle. The machine/carriage would not move no matter where on the frame it was located including at the location of the "its fighting me here sticky note" - sure looked to be level. Time for more precise technology - bring out the laser....
The first photo shows the Amara with a horizontal laser oriented across the top of the carriage track - a quick way to visualize if there is a flatness problem somewhere on the frame. Don't panic, you don't have to mortgage the house to get a laser - you probably know a friend who is an electrician, cabinet craftsman, suspended ceiling installer, or painter all of whom will have a leveling laser. The complete system I used was less that $300 - links will be at the bottom if you are interested.
The second photo shows the laser hitting a target on a vernier caliper (precise measurement tool) - by moving the caliper up and down to keep the target centered on the laser beam you read how far away from flat the frame is in each location you measure - maybe you are lucky and the target is centered everywhere.
The third photo shows the caliper with the beam centered on the target - about a foot away from where the sticky-note was. The fourth and fifth pictures show the laser beam/target where the problem area was - you will see instead of the beam being centered in between the lines of the target the top lines were not touched by the beam at all - meaning the frame was just a little (about 1mm) high at this location.
I lowered the foot at this frame location by 1/2 turn, and the beam re-centered on the target, the frame was level AND flat, and the Free Motion Quilter will be delighted as the next quilt gets loaded. The key here is the 1mm "hump" occurred very quickly - within a foot - to the "flatness" of the rest of the frame which allowed it to be felt by a sensitive Free Motion Quilter. If it occurred on a more gentle slope over a longer distance it likely would not be detected by the longarmer.
Do you have questions on this topic or a suggestion for another one you are interested in?