Had a good brain fart last night.
While i am waiting on the bearings for the motor and pulley to be delivered (please be delivered today) i needed to address the rear way wiper install issue. The gib on the y axis protrudes over a half inch out the back of the saddle, preventing the way wiper installation, and also explaining why the cast aluminum way wiper was cracked at that spot. I had been researching the why's and how's of that. Did you guys know that a machine sold in 1968 may have some wear on the ways?
Long story short, i had two good options, and few not so good options. Im not going to even talk about the not so good options and look at the two good ones. The first option is to buy a new gib from Wells-Index. It has it's upside for sure but it also has a huge downside, at least for me. That downside is that i have no way to fit it to the ways since they come oversize and really dont want to pay someone to do that when that money would be better spent on having the ways completely rescraped, assuming the rest of the machine is good to go, which at this point is still an unknown part of the big picture equation.
So, i decided on option two. Shim the existing gib. I have feeler gauges and shim stock already. The shim stock can be cut with a paper cutter and i found i could make some clean intricate cuts around oil ports and stop grooves with the dremel i already have. So, option two is cheap and easy.
That brings me to my brain fart. I go out to pull the gib out and start measuring to fit a shim to the inside of it. Problem is the gib wont come out. It come almost all the way out, but then hard stops right at the end. It's already late at night so im just going to blame it on a long day
. After a few choice words, i start disassembling the entire table. 45 minutes later, the table is apart and I have the saddle standing there laughing at me, it seems. What happened was that i hadnt unscrewed the stop bolt enough to let the gib come out. 4 more turns on it and it would have come out like it was supposed to. Live and learn. If it wasnt for mistakes we wouldnt learn anything.
In the end, the job is done, the table has much less play in it, and i know i will never forget to unscrew the stop bolt far enough. Hopefully those bearings get here today so i can start getting this thing adjusted and ready to run.