Cross and compound slide gibs

Here is the cross slide gib
 

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If the lathe is new or has low wear, I would expect them to not sit as deep, since they are tapered gibs, as there would be less adjustment needed.

I adjust my gib depth (screw) until I have a balance between effort to move the slides and side to side play. I can eliminate all the play on my slides, but then they become very hard to move.
 
DAT510 said:
If the lathe is new or has low wear, I would expect them to not sit as deep, since they are tapered gibs, as there would be less adjustment needed.

I adjust my gib depth (screw) until I have a balance between effort to move the slides and side to side play. I can eliminate all the play on my slides, but then they become very hard to move.
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It’s brand new. Thank you for the response. I felt like it shouldn’t stick out and be crooked like that.
 
Congrats on the new lathe.

It looks like you're in the process of disassembling it and cleaning the ways and gibs? (Btw, is a good thing to do). It will give you a chance to inspect things to make sure there isn't any swarf or other debris from manufacturing.

When I got my mill, I found a lot of grit and cast iron dust in the ways (left from manufacturing/assembly). Everything move noticeably smoother after I gave it a thorough cleaning.
 
Probably they need to be scraped in. A lot of equipment today has no quality control. So it needs to be finished by scraping . My be Richard King will check in and clarify things. A lot of new equipment from China is not finished to the point of is usable.
 
As long as it doesn't stick out so far that it causes an operational problem, I'd think that stickout is a good thing, gives more adjustment range as the gib wears.

When you say "crooked", is the gib bent down its length? When you pull the gib out, do you see uneven wear marks on it?
 
homebrewed said:
As long as it doesn't stick out so far that it causes an operational problem, I'd think that stickout is a good thing, gives more adjustment range as the gib wears.

When you say "crooked", is the gib bent down its length? When you pull the gib out, do you see uneven wear marks on it?
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No, I had a hard time pulling the entire slide on one side of the gib. There are wear marks on the slide on the v ways.
 
If the gib is noticeably bent, it could take a lot of scraping to get it flat; and once flat it might be too thin -- with a taper of a few degrees, even a small thickness change will require the gib to move a ways in order to snug it up against the slide . If the gib isn't made of something brittle (like cast iron) you may be able to improve the situation by careful bending.in the opposite direction.

Hopefully the gib and slide haven't worn too unevenly. Are replacement gibs available for your lathe?
 
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