Way Smoothing, instead of Way Scraping?

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Mister Meeseeks

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Hey guys, I'm restoring an old Jet JMD-18 Mill/Drill. Right now I have it completely disassembled and the painted parts are out getting sand blasted. I'm sitting here thinking about the areas where the tables slide on one another. There are heavy machine marks and I just think like man that has to cause a ton of friction. I want to restore this thing to be the best that I can, and if I can make those tables slide like they are on glass I want to do it. I have heard about way scraping, but I dont know how to do it and no one in my area does either. I'm thinking about hitting those ways with like some 400 grit sandpaper followed by scotch bride pads and some polishing compound. Just try to smooth them out as much as possible.

Question is... Is there something I'm not thinking about that would adversely affect the function of my mill if I do this?

Lastly, just want to mention I'm a hobby mill operator out of my garage. It's not a precision environment where every micrometer counts. Thanks for your help!
 
I would not recommend using sandpaper on the ways
You may be better off lightly stoning the high spots with a high quality sharpening stone (150 grit or finer)
I would use dollar store windex as the cutting fluid- expensive windex is not any better for the purpose.
Be sure to wipe off any window cleaner residue , after smoothing.
The idea is to only remove high spots without making low spots lower
 
There's a few things that you're probably not aware of here.

The first thing I would do is get some precision ground flat stones and stone the ways, lightly. The gouges aren't necessarily a problem if the vast majority of the way surfaces are still "flat." The burs on the edges of those gouges can definitely be a problem. If they can be stoned down so they are no longer proud of the way surface, is could probably be "good enough".

Polishing a way surface is a bad idea. The process of scraping ways is to do two things. 1) create bearing points that are spread evenly across the surface in a high concentration and that the tops of those bearing points are all in the same plane. And 2) to create low points for lubrication. Two perfectly smooth surfaces gliding across each other will squeeze out any lubrication and eventually gall and possibly to the point of nearly welding the surfaces together given enough pressure.

So, do NOT use sandpaper or scotch bright on a precision way surface. Stone the burs down. Then do what you can to measure the accuracy or precision of the ways as they are. If they are that bad, the only recourse is to have the ways professional ground and then scraped back in to precision. But I would probably say that this is not a viable option for most hobby machinists as you are talking thousands of dollars to hire someone to do that.
 
Ulma Doctor said:
I would not recommend using sandpaper on the ways
You may be better off lightly stoning the high spots with a high quality sharpening stone (150 grit or finer)
I would use dollar store windex as the cutting fluid- expensive windex is not any better for the purpose.
Be sure to wipe off any window cleaner residue , after smoothing.
The idea is to only remove high spots without making low spots lower
Click to expand...
This^^^*

Hope wherever you send them for blasting doesn’t also do the ways. Did you tape them off before turning it over?

John
 
Mister Meeseeks said:
Hey guys, I'm restoring an old Jet JMD-18 Mill/Drill. Right now I have it completely disassembled and the painted parts are out getting sand blasted. I'm sitting here thinking about the areas where the tables slide on one another. There are heavy machine marks and I just think like man that has to cause a ton of friction. I want to restore this thing to be the best that I can, and if I can make those tables slide like they are on glass I want to do it. I have heard about way scraping, but I dont know how to do it and no one in my area does either. I'm thinking about hitting those ways with like some 400 grit sandpaper followed by scotch bride pads and some polishing compound. Just try to smooth them out as much as possible.

Question is... Is there something I'm not thinking about that would adversely affect the function of my mill if I do this?

Lastly, just want to mention I'm a hobby mill operator out of my garage. It's not a precision environment where every micrometer counts. Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
It not hard to do scraping
It just removing the high lights.

Dave
 
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