I recently bought a second hand Sieg X2 Mill. Supposedly 7 months old. The seller said that he had changed all of the screws for "real" ones. Whilst I have done some work on it I have not been happy with the "feel" of the slides and today stripped it. The gibs are showing no witness on the face but show a groove where the corner of the dovetail meets them. Reason IMHO, is that the gib adjustment screws have been replaced with dog point where I feel that they should be cone point. The dog point is bearing on the angled face of the gib and therefore the pressure point is well away from the nominal centre line of the gib. Assuming that I am correct the first job will be to cone point the existing screws. No problem I can use a friends lathe. The major problem is what to do with the gibs. The original "spots" for the screws to centre on are a bit "bu**ered".
Do I attempt respot them deeper? OR do I stone off the burrs to flat the face and turn the gib about to give me a clean face to spot. This will obviously mean that the "holey" face will be the working face on the dovetail, but if it is stoned smooth where is the problem? It also gives me lubricant pockets ;-)
I may well replace the gibs in the future but I need to get on and make some "proper" brackets for the chinese readouts.
If I do replace the gibs what material is recommended the existing appear to be steel.
Thanks for your interest