Stupid Question so please dont shout at me Bridgeport knee

What company did yo approach? There seems to be very few slideway grinding people around these days.

I wouldn't For a good slideway the Gibs usually have to be re-ground too.

Thats an art in itself. I think JS has refered to DIY Scraping as Scrapping ;) Which is probably quite often true!

Maybe if you talk nicely, they might just do it for cash.

I think the last time I enquired about regrinding a bridgeport it was

700 for table, saddle, and Knee. An Interact with Hard Chrome ways was 900 for a regrind with no re-chroming.

Wayne....

I have to ask this question, but why when things have been reground does one have to scrape after? Are we talking of high spots left by grinding and why are these left.

I have seen finished products after gringing looking almost as a mirror finish

Adrian

They often don't need scraping these days. A lot if the older machines were planed and not ground. Sometimes you will see scraped flaking for oil retention or so they say, Hardinge used to do it for decoration like on Lathe Apron faces!

When cnc and some manual machines are rebuilt often one face is turcited and this does need scraping to give a flat surface, as it's bonded on.

There used to be a slideway grinders down here in Dorset Run by a Phil Goodall. He's either retired or expired now, and I'd have little faith in the outfit now, if they are still going. I did look in there after he sold the business and was not left with the right impression. Even when Phil did a friends Bridgeport the table had to be done twice. Was good in the end.

Wayne....

reground does

machines

turcited

Phil did my Colchester Master a few years back,and when I went to inspect it I could feel the discrepancy on the bed between the main casting and the gap piece ! Showed up on a test turn as well. In fairness he sorted it - he'd removed the gap piece and when he put it back there was a bit of crud under it, when removed and cleaned after grinding it left a step (of course). I do wish when he offered to re-paint the machine he hadn't used suds soluble paint - my coolant is permenently Colchester Green !

He sold the business to another who is still trading. There is another company (well couple of blokes actually) 'Mick & Charley' in Verney Road off the Old Kent Road - they did my previous two Colchester Students and my Bridgeport. Excellent work but rather expensive.

AWEM

Think by rescrape after he means putting oil retaining abilities back in ... zig-zag arrow paterns... frosting for oil retention.

all the best.mark

£360 seems like quite a reasonable price, given that dovetails are involved. Was this just the knee or was it for the table as well? What about the knee/column ways? If the price was just for the knee, are you planning to re-scrape the table ways to fit the knee ways?

Scraping the gibs to match the slideway is one of the easier operations.

If you do the job properly, have good (bought or made) master straight edges and templates and aren't afraid to take a lot of time, then scraping will do as good or better job than grinding. If you have the surface ground you will still need to do flaking if you don't want the table to stick to the knee (if the grinding is any good, that is). DIY grinding can do damage far more quickly than DIY scraping!

Significant question before your hand goes too far into your pocket... Are the pits just that. I.e. pits that may serve as oil reservoirs on an otherwise good surface or are they pits on a surface that is/was rusty all over? If the former, then ignore them. If the latter then continue with the dipping of hands in pockets.

Also If the saddle gets tight towards the back, just how much are you talking about. The difference between no play at the front and tight at the back may be a tenth of a thou and might be taken out in less than five minutes with an oilstone.

Not shouting, asking reasonably :-)

Mark Rand RTFM

It dates back to old technology. A bit like flint knapping and getting the stones to fit on the pyramids.

Lets be honest most of the old machine tools were made on even older machine tools and there were errors. The easiest way to correct these given cheap labour and Woodbines only being nine pence for ten, was to scrape the two surfaces in.

Now modern times the purists say it's to create small depressions in the ways to retain oil. No one ever mentions retaining crud.

Modern day technology and machine tools can grind to microns, surface finish to a glossy gnats bollock and retain a continuous surface film of lubricant better than anything Durex or snot can achieve.

If scraping was the answer then pray explain why on high precision articles where cost is no object do we not bother to scrape but accept the surface finish straight off a precision grinder ?

Modern machine tools run on hardened and ground linear rails - not scraped, they contain oodles of bearings of all description, - also not scraped. So if our modern machine tool using literally hundreds of bearings and a few precision slides don't need scraping why do we have to go back to the days of flattening a machined surface with the back of a shovel ??

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

Don't know the answer to your question but assuming that the somewhat unrealiable deadlines of Mr Morgan ever get met this book might be worth reading:

I've got his scraping book and it's very clear (much better than Connolly).

Charles

Scrapping? Hehe. What did I say ;)

I think the prices I was quoted sometime ago was from a Company called Unislide in Nuneaton. Have no idea what their work is like.

Wayne....