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Need suggestions/coaching with making a lathe gib
- Thread starter Curtis
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2017
- Messages
- 2,399
I made a 5" long brass gib for my mini mill. They are not tapered, which simplifies things. Annealing in our kitchen oven didn't make much of a difference. The main thing was to machine both sides as equally as possible, plus some careful bending on the mill. Don't hammer the gib down when you machine it, it will spring back leaving you where you started from. That was my experience, anyway.
I put the ends of the gib on two dowel pins and used a mill-mounted rod to push the (high) center down to reverse the curve (it doesn't take much force!). I tested it using a surface plate and seeing how much it rocked. I went back and forth quite a few times to get it close, then lapped it. Scraping would work if you know what you're doing. If the gib rocks while you're taking a print, you don't know what's going on so best to find the non-rocking side and scrape that. Gib screws on the other side of the gib don't care so much about bow. eh?
If you don't have a mill like mine, ignore what I just said
.
I put the ends of the gib on two dowel pins and used a mill-mounted rod to push the (high) center down to reverse the curve (it doesn't take much force!). I tested it using a surface plate and seeing how much it rocked. I went back and forth quite a few times to get it close, then lapped it. Scraping would work if you know what you're doing. If the gib rocks while you're taking a print, you don't know what's going on so best to find the non-rocking side and scrape that. Gib screws on the other side of the gib don't care so much about bow. eh?
If you don't have a mill like mine, ignore what I just said
.