Syil X4 gib adjustment - Anyone else having problems with their Z axis gib?

[MadMax]

I can't seem to get my Z axis gib into adjustment. It seems that I bottom out the adjustment screw before I can come close to clamping the travel. I'm getting about 0.01" of horizontal play at the end of a chuck held dial indicator when the head sits down on the airspring.

Anyone else have problems stripping their Y travel grub screws? I ended up replacing them with M6 socket head capscrews. You can crank a bunch more torque with bigger sockets and longer screws provided more space to easier to engage and turn the locknuts.

[MadMax]

I just got some help from Keith at Syil Canada (great support by the way!) and learned that Syil uses a pair of overlapping gibs for their Z axis. Their exploded view dwg only shows one so you have to push two screws together rather than moving a single gib to one direction. Problem explained...

[syil canada]

just to avoid confusion, through removing the z gib after doubting the dual gib advise, the x4 is a single tapered gib with adjusting screw @ the top. By adjusting the top screw this forces the tapered gib downwards adjusting the pressure. the bottom screw is basicaly a seat for the gibb

[MadMax]

Keith kindly sent me a replacement gib which also doesn't work quite right. Not enough range of adjustment still.

Now that I've got two bad gibs, I wonder if Syil has economized on gib manufacturing a little too far. Both of my gibs do not present planar faces to the vertical way. There are bench grinding marks all over on a critical friction surface.

I put some permanent marker ink onto my gibs and moved the travel up and down and find that less than 30% of the total gib area makes contact with the dovetail.

The gib is so badly made that it's probably about 0.005"-0.01" out of plane. The ends are radiused which turns them into chip scoops which would pack chips into the ends of the gibs instead of pushing them off.

Are other users finding that their vertical axis gibs are out of plane? With such a rough surface on the sliding face, I have to wonder if the taper on the gib matches the taper in my mill head. The contact between my gib and way is biased strongly towards one end so I suspect that my gib taper does not measure the taper in the mill head.

I'd really like to give up on Syil made gibs and get my own professionally made on a surface grinder, but I'm not sure I can gauge the taper quite right. I'm guessing that measuring the gap between a pair of balls sitting in the mill dovetail should work.

Does anyone else have crappy gibs in their X4s?

[fastlanecafe]

This is pretty typical of Chinese manuafacturing. Usually they will contract out the castings to a foundry, and if they have decent equipment, the foundry will do the machining as well. A modern foundry will have good machines, so the dovetails will be pretty close to parallel and ground in the final step. Then things get shaky- the factory will sub contract small parts like brackets to little backyard shops which are cheap. Unfortunately, the gib often gets mixed in this bag of stuff and ends up being made from a strip of steel ground by hand. You probably already discovered that the fasteners are also sub par and in some cases home made as well. You are probably going to be better off in the long run to make a new one yourself rather than waiting for arrival of more of the same from Syil.

[MadMax]

Yeah, I've started the gauging process to make my own gibs. They'll be ground from unhardened O-1. It seems to me that gibs should be less hard than the ways because they're more replaceable.

The crappy gib actually really surprised me. It blew my mind that so much got done right (nice surface quality on the ways etc) then it all went to crap on something so critical and unfortunately quite critical. It pains me to think that I'd be running such a bad gib on well ground ways which would ultimately wear them out pretty fast so I'm looking forward to putting in a good ground gib.

FLC: your description of outsourcing practices appears to fit. The X4 seems to be otherwise very well made. I saw some pretty significant damage to my gib which looks like rough part handling practices. Judging from the angle of the bash marks on the edges of my gibs, it looks like they're getting dumped into a common box which gets kicked down the stairs. When I put my gibs on a granite flat, I can find out of plane deviations as high as 0.005". It blows my mind that the gibs have rounded edges which would end up scooping chips between the gib and the way with no chip shield on the vertical feed.

I give up. I want my machine to work well and not wear out too fast so I'm getting my own gibs ground.

[ataxy]

Originally Posted by MadMax Yeah, I've started the gauging process to make my own gibs. They'll be ground from unhardened O-1. It seems to me that gibs should be less hard than the ways because they're more replaceable. The crappy gib actually really surprised me. It blew my mind that so much got done right (nice surface quality on the ways etc) then it all went to crap on something so critical and unfortunately quite critical. It pains me to think that I'd be running such a bad gib on well ground ways which would ultimately wear them out pretty fast so I'm looking forward to putting in a good ground gib. FLC: your description of outsourcing practices appears to fit. The X4 seems to be otherwise very well made. I saw some pretty significant damage to my gib which looks like rough part handling practices. Judging from the angle of the bash marks on the edges of my gibs, it looks like they're getting dumped into a common box which gets kicked down the stairs. When I put my gibs on a granite flat, I can find out of plane deviations as high as 0.005". It blows my mind that the gibs have rounded edges which would end up scooping chips between the gib and the way with no chip shield on the vertical feed. I give up. I want my machine to work well and not wear out too fast so I'm getting my own gibs ground.

well i am going to be getting my x4 in a week, week and a half, i will make sure to check this out, honestly this is quite unacceptable for a machine at that price and in all honesty should be corrected and exchange at no cost by Syil china, i do understand that those are small Chinese machine but they are still worth 5.5k, so you should expect poorer performance compared to a 20k machine but you should still expect the same craftsmanship

[ataxy]

Ok after 2-3 weeks of ownership of a syil x4+ i tought id post back in this thread in regarde to the z gibs and my experience with them first anf foremost thx to keith at syil canada for answering my 2000 phone call and i definitly hope syil china will listen as well as he is doing to my opinion and critsism and idea on how to make the product better, now on with the main subject

There is definitly out of the box more then you would wish play and that is on all axis, but this post is about the play on the z axis and i will shift back just after those few line to that famous z axis, now the x and y axis where in desperate need of adjustement when it got here i actualy had about a 5 degree wiggle on both axis but this was pretty straight foward to fix tighten the screw that in fron and on the right side of the saddle until you get the table and saddle tight and running smooth, i highly recommend you tighten those screw in 1 degree increment until you get them right, or if you prefer until the motor of the axis starts to miss step then back up one or two degree also check them you should not lap you gibs to a 100% flat but close and you will gain in stifness and ease of movement for your motor when the gibs are tight, if you dont agree with me well call the nhl and tell them that all hockey player should scratch there blade.

Now the z gibs is a bit harder to adjust and i highly recommend that you get a BFS, more commoly known as a Big Fakin Screwdriver, you know the one with the thick 5/8 wide flat blade you will need it, you will need to first loosen the bottom screw a bit just to relive the pressure of the z gibs and now with you BFS start to unscrew the top screw and take it off, after that gently by taping the BFS with the palm of you hand start taking out the gibs by inserting the flat head in the notch of the gibs ounce you are done take out the gibs and clean it using a good toxic solvent that will eventualy give you some sort of disease, now that you are done here is what you will need to do... lap the bugger, simple hey, just make sure that the side that as the sort of fish scale pattern keps its pattern on atleast 5% to 10% of its surface this will help in keeping the surface lubricated the other three side can be lapped to a flat polished surface make sur while you lap it that you are respecting the angle of the gibs and dont over do it, you dont want to take 0.010 of each face a good 0.001 should be enough to make the gib operate better also the slot on the gib, at least on mine where all crooked file them so they become square and perpendicular to the gib this will help the screw apply its force in a straight down motion instead of applying it slightly sideway, you might belive it wont change much but i belive every little bit count on those machine.now insert back the z gibs and allready you will notice a big difference in the side slack the head has, mine went from ~0.025 down to ~0.01 now the next part will take alot of the rest of the slack the head might still have, by pushing up under the head in the front of it you will notice that the head slightly rock up and down on the dove tail for that part get someone to help you out, as you gently rock the head up and down tighten the screw more this for me brought the slack in the head down to a way more comfy ~0.002 slack when i push with my hand and i did this alone so if you are two you might be able to tight it to 0.0005 wich will be i think the best you will get ou of this machine now just to point out the the 0.025 and 0.01 i was able to make just using my thumb the 0.002 is with my whole hand pushing on the head if you have any other trick you would like to share that might help me or other owner of the x4/x4+ then please do.

I have so far been disapointed with certain aspect of the machine that i think the end user should not have to deal with when you buy a brand new machine, but i must admit that at the same time it been a pretty good thing to have to fuss around and tweak it to make it an even better machine by making you go around it and to figure out where all the screw and adjustment are.