Y Axis on Mill seems Tight!

[AugustOriginals]

Good evening everyone,

I recently purchased a Harbor Freight 44991 Mini Mill. I have been cleaning it up and working through the machine and have noticed the Y axis seems right when coming towards me. Seems fine when moving away and the X axis seems to move with no problem.

Thanks for any help with this as I have been toying with it for a bit now and can’t seem to solve it. It does seems like a flat bearing behind the hand crank would help but doubt that’s that best solution.

Thanks again and have a great night!

Sean

 

[mikey]

I'm not familiar with your machine but could it be that your gib need to be adjusted?

 

[markba633csi]

It's possible, although not a certainty, that the dovetail slide for the Y axis was machined with a slight taper from the factory. The only real fix for something like that is to do some additional machining work and hand scraping. If this is a new machine I would consider sending it back. If this is a used machine you can either live with it or try to fix it.

First you should remove the gib strip and examine it for bends or other issues. Sometimes they are so roughly made a considerable improvement is possible simply by smoothing with some emery cloth, garnet paper, or a file. Grease well and re-assemble. Repeat as necessary. Some folks do retrofit their machines with thrust bearings for smoother action and less friction.
-Mark

 

[AugustOriginals]

I'm not familiar with your machine but could it be that your gib need to be adjusted?

Thank you for the reply, after a bit more digging It seems that this was the problem. I adjusted the gib and much better.

 

[AugustOriginals]

It's possible, although not a certainty, that the dovetail slide for the Y axis was machined with a slight taper from the factory. The only real fix for something like that is to do some additional machining work and hand scraping. If this is a new machine I would consider sending it back. If this is a used machine you can either live with it or try to fix it.

First you should remove the gib strip and examine it for bends or other issues. Sometimes they are so roughly made a considerable improvement is possible simply by smoothing with some emery cloth, garnet paper, or a file. Grease well and re-assemble. Repeat as necessary. Some folks do retrofit their machines with thrust bearings for smoother action and less friction.
-Mark

Thanks Mark, and i did some more research and found it to be the gib was a bit tight. a minor adjustment and it is working much better. Thank you for the replay and if it happens again I will have to look into this fix.

 

[GunsOfNavarone]

You're saying it's tight in one direction on Y but fine the other direction? Make sure when you loosen the gib on one side, you tighten on the other. It is kept in place on both sides, if you loosen it on one side you have put play on the other end that you need to tighten to remove that play otherwise your gib will wander and cause that sort of issue.

 

[AugustOriginals]

You're saying it's tight in one direction on Y but fine the other direction? Make sure when you loosen the gib on one side, you tighten on the other. It is kept in place on both sides, if you loosen it on one side you have put play on the other end that you need to tighten to remove that play otherwise your gib will wander and cause that sort of issue.

Thank you for the reply and I will look into that, it did working much better with the initial adjustment but will double check that I have no issues with only adjusting the one side