1. Home
  2. ⏣ General Metalworking
  3. mill: fish scale pattern on ways

mill: fish scale pattern on ways

Hi, I'm very new to machining and I just got an RF45 clone mill. I've read as much as I can about prepping of this machine and I was trying to figure out for myself today whether I should lap the ways. On close inspection the ways have a sort of ground fish scale pattern. From a distance the ways look almost like mother of pearl. It looks like the pattern was applied manually because the marks are not uniform in spacing. Can anyone tell be what the marks are called, what they are for, and how they are applied? Just curious.

BTW I'm probably NOT going to try to lap the ways because 1) A well respected guy at IH said that most chinese mills no longer need lapping, and 2) at least to my eye, they seem much better than pictures of others earlier machines, both before and after they lapped. I basically understand the big debate as to whether lapping should ever be done. --But I would still like that question above answered.

--zeb

Reply to
tom walter
Loading thread data ...

Does it look like the bottom pic on the right?

formatting link
I've never seen an import mill with scraped ways, doesn't mean they didn't sell one. If that's what you have, the article should give you an idea of what you have. If done right, you shouldn't need to lap.

Stan

Reply to
stans4

The ways on mine look like the pic in the middle , what they call "frosted" , for oil retention .

Reply to
Snag

That's called "frosting" or "flaking." Ostensibly, it's for oil retention. In truth, it's usually just decorative. It does provide a good way to judge wear of the bed.

It was traditionally done with a hand tool called a scraper. It looks like a toothless flat file with a sharpened end. You push it into the iron. There are some roughing scrapers that have a pad for pushing them with your thigh, rather than your hands.

The basic purpose of a scraper is to refine the surface for flatness or other accuracy, depending on what's being scraped. The scrapers at Moore Special Tool used to scrape the ways and the table surface of their jig grinders to +/- 40 millionths of an inch, from end to end. When they were feeling frisky they worked it down to +/-20 millionths, just for fun. The frosting is a final touch.

However, in commercial lathe building today, it's generally done with a power scraper, which contains a solenoid or a motor and crank that stroke the scraper in and out. Manual scraping can be a workout.

I can't help with the lapping question.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

And on modern cnc machines with box ways there isn't any flaking at all. At least not on the Mori's and Okuma's I've worked on. Ways look machine ground to me.

Wes

Reply to
Wes

Wasinos had ground box ways with no flaking, but the head was hand-scraped into the bed. If a machine has pressure-fed way lubrication, there is no mechanical reason for flaking or frosting.

Most machines have ground ways today; some have frosting applied as a mostly decorative touch.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Yes, Stan, it's like the middle picture with the intersecting circles, only mine are small arcs spaced futher apart and not intersecting so much. Thanks. Geez Wiki has everything.

Reply to
tom walter

Wes sez: ". . . .|Ways look machine ground to me. . . ."

Same on my large Comet mill which is a '92 manual model.

Bob Swinney

with box ways there

ed.

Wes

Reply to
Robert Swinney

The ways on mine look like the pic in the middle , what they call "frosted" , for oil retention .

Reply to
Robert Swinney

The ways on mine look like the pic in the middle , what they call "frosted" , for oil retention .

Reply to
Robert Swinney

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.