Gauging interest: anyone else want to get in on some high quality X4 Z feed gibs?

[Oldmanandhistoy]

Hi all,

Anyone thought about using Turcite http://www.midlands-slideway-grinding.com/products.html

http://www.mtsandtg.com/specialty/turcite

John

[MadMax]

extrapilot: First step is to measure a heap of machines to see what kind of variance there is out there. It seems likely that the gibs were outsourced to a company that specializes in junky parts and that most of the core parts of the X4 were made by a more diligent operation. I'm hoping that this is the case and that the ways are at least parallel and planar. It seems to me that this is the case because the surface "quality" of the gibs is a lot worse than any of the critical parts like the ways and I find it hard to see that someone would put effort into well ground ways and jam a hunk of a ground rusty leaf spring and make it bear against a ground slideway. I can only guess that the assembling company felt that they had a deadline to meet on delivery and accepted parts that were poorly made from a supplier.

iGG1e: I noticed the play when I was checking the perpendicularity of the Z travel to the X-Y plane. I figured that I should shim the Z column perpendicular before tramming the head. I noticed a pretty gross shift with my dial indicator when the head lifted on/off the gas spring at the end of travel and I realized that the vertical gib was way out and couldn't be adjusted far enough.

Long story short, I can shim the gib to crank down on the ways, but I really don't want to do that because I'm worried that the crap finish and nonplanar surface on the gib will skive my Z ways. Also, cranking it down to low play would end up being a high friction situation because the surface contact would be so bad.

Oldmanandhistoy: That turcite stuff seems like interesting stuff. Still I'm not too crazy about having to apply a 0.003" coating of adhesive though. I can't see the material coming down dead planar and I'd be worried about building in some twist or out of parallelism stacking a layer of adhesive under a layer of sheet material. It would be a neat idea to be able to refurbish a turcite surfaced way by stripping the turcite and reapplying it. If it goes down consistently it would be a way for semi laypersons to refurbish an area of the ways that was worn narrow if the metal never wore down.

[matteo]

I'll be watching this thread for my new x4+. I would be willing to measure stuff for having some new gibs made if I new exactly what to measure.

Maybe you could take some pictures to clarify how and what you want measured. And include what tools will be necessary.