Oil grooves for Fadal saddle and table turcite

macds · Apr 5, 2018

Gentlemen,

I am in the process of helping a buddy rebuild his fadal.
I plan on machining the turcite flat and cutting oil grooves approx .015" deep using a 1/8" ball mill.

My question is, what style oil grooves should I cut? Should I cut the olympic ring style, factory fadal (radius-line radius), or should I cut joined sweeping arcs (like a large lazy w).
How close to the edges of the turcite should I get?
Should I join from one lube hole to the other? (each turcite strip has a lube hole in each end)
Also, do i need to concern myself with the cc volume of the oil shot potentially raising the saddle \ table, hydraulic jack style (if oil shot volume is larger than groove capacity)?

Thanks for the help.

machtool · Apr 6, 2018

macds said:
Gentlemen,

I am in the process of helping a buddy rebuild his fadal.
I plan on machining the turcite flat and cutting oil grooves approx .015" deep using a 1/8" ball mill.

My question is, what style oil grooves should I cut? Should I cut the olympic ring style, factory fadal (radius-line radius), or should I cut joined sweeping arcs (like a large lazy w).
How close to the edges of the turcite should I get?
Should I join from one lube hole to the other? (each turcite strip has a lube hole in each end)
Also, do i need to concern myself with the cc volume of the oil shot potentially raising the saddle \ table, hydraulic jack style (if oil shot volume is larger than groove capacity)?

Thanks for the help.

I wouldn't lose any sleep over the lube pump lifting a slide. Assuming Bijur there 40 psi at best. Going into open ports on a slide, post manifold and meter units, pressure at the slide, would be like an old bloke with a prostrate problem. Next to no pressure.

Oil grooves. Ones parallel to the axis are near on useless. The oil just sits in them. Goes along with the axis travel. It also creates an un-worn part on the slide.

I love an over lapped Olympic Ring. But that's only because they look so nice. Your best groove will be the zig -zag. Grooves at 90 degrees, to the axis, with a Zig to the opposite end of the next Zag. So more of a Z than a W. W works also, but you would have to have a Polish ancestry.

Richard King · Apr 6, 2018

I have not left the forum, just to tired to write much. Teaching a class in Northern CA. I have rebuild a few Fedas and want to help. I would suggest leveling and aligning the machine before putting on the turcite. Be sure to sweat out the oil in the iron before re gluing it. I also like twing zig zga or lXXXXXXXl oil groves on the horizontal ways and zig zag on vertical ways.

macds · Apr 6, 2018

Richard, I appreciate you chiming in here.
We've sand blasted the casting (not the actual ways), and hit it with the tiger torch where the turcite needs to glue. Painted, tiger torch again, then gone over with xylene and a lint free cloth before gluing the turcite down.

I think you are describing diamond shaped oil grooves. That makes sense to me. spreads the oil bot in and oil during movement? Correct?

Richard King · Apr 7, 2018

<><><> Not that but IXXXXXXI but spread out further. I will draw a sketch and attach it tonight. We did oil groove experiments when I taught in Taiwan at the machine tool research center PMC. The diamond shape does not allow the oil to reach the outer edge.

The I at the ends spread the oil out evenly. we kept them about 1 1/2" from the ends and about 1" from the edges. I may have a paper someplace that they gave to there people....have to look for it. But bottom line is no straight lines running parallel as Phil said. Also relieve the center 40% about .005" so a pool of oil is always under the short part. nd as far as wipers put a wedge behind the wipers so the snow plow the chips off the ways instead of pushing it forward. Got to go. Oh and I would scrape the Turcite to get oil pockets and better alignment. Rich

wagsha48 · Apr 7, 2018

I have done alot of maintenance on my employer's 4020 and concurr4 with the diamond/zigzag suggestion stated above, though I could see the advantages of Olympic rings if you have the capability. I doubt there is that much difference though. Our 4020 is aging and we finally said to hell with the turcite on the vertical gibs and went to solid brass wedges direct from Fadal. I have not had to tighten them since we put them in 6 months ago and since then we have put a ton of hours on it with a 2" high feed mill doing a highly interrupted cut in 4140 at 300ipm to rough out a radius contour. I am now a believer in the solid brass gibs. Remember this down the road but if you are rebuilding to factory specs then by all means start with the turcite.

Thank you for giving the Fadal VMCs the respect and attention that they deserve!

macds · Apr 7, 2018

Eagerly awaiting your response Richard.
Turcite is milled flat and beautifully smooth to the pristine table top. (this machine had a pallet changer, and unmolested table)
We have replaced all the gibs with matching bronze ones.

Richard King · Apr 7, 2018

I just drew a pattern on a piece of paper and I saw diamond shape....lol......but with a straight line at the ends and middle. Be sure you not cut the groves thru the material. That's why Shambam went bankrupt because they were sued because the gumbry brochure they originally wrote instructed that you cut the grooves through the material. I promise you will get stick slip if you fail to scrape oil pockets into the turcite. Especailly on the Y axis. You need to match fit the mating surfaces too.

Scraping Turcite, The oil grove in the 2 pictures were not cut the way I prefer, but they used it.

macds · Apr 7, 2018

Thank you kindly Richard.
We do have some pitting on the ways. I think we will try to use this to our advantage for oil pockets, so as to avoid grinding castings\scraping turcite.
Grinding the ways is not in the budget at this point.

So diamond shape, with a perpendicular cut at both ends, and mid point is the trick? I see this working well on the y axis saddle.
X axis has only 1 lube point at far end, should I also apply this diamond strategy to that?
How far from edges of turcite should I stay?

Was planning on cutting only .01-.015" deep with a 1/8" ball

Richard King · Apr 8, 2018

1/4" is better or 3/8... more groove = more oil .015 deep with a 1/8" burr is pretty narrow. will write more . Remember when scraping Turcite the scraped oil pocket has to be a minimum of .002"

sblack · Apr 11, 2018

Richard King said:
I just drew a pattern on a piece of paper and I saw diamond shape....lol......but with a straight line at the ends and middle. Be sure you not cut the groves thru the material. That's why Shambam went bankrupt because they were sued because the gumbry brochure they originally wrote instructed that you cut the grooves through the material. I promise you will get stick slip if you fail to scrape oil pockets into the turcite. Especailly on the Y axis. You need to match fit the mating surfaces too.

Wow that is some serious uniform contact over a huge area. Really impressive. :eek:

Richard King · Apr 20, 2018

I was looking through pictures yesterday and found more on oil grooves and Rulon 142 scraping (turcite).

L to R VBM saddle I touched up down in OK, showing me using a BIAX 1/2 moon R 60 flaker blade ground to a neg 12 deg to scrape the Turcite and the headstock of a Kitamira VMC - clamped bars same as vert. ways, scraping and cutting in oil groves with sharpened pin punch :-) Rich

RC99 · Apr 20, 2018

I am no expert, but what I have seen on old clapped out machines I have pulled apart, is oil grooves done by hand but the depth was not uniform and due to wear the groove had been worn out in a few spots so it was no longer continuous and therefore the oil was blocked from getting to where it was supposed to.

Tyrone Shoelaces · Apr 20, 2018

When I was grooving cast iron ways I'd groove 3/16" deep by 1/4 wide. You'd need a lot of wear to eradicate those grooves. The " Shamban " we used was 3mm thick at all times, we never used anything thinner than that. I had a home made variation on a pull scraper to do the grooves in " Shamban ", " Turcite "etc.

Regards Tyrone.

Richard King · Apr 21, 2018

We were replacing the original .047" on a OEM Kitamura headstock. I wasn't real impressed with the 4 pad design and the way oil was suppose to drain down. But the machine owner said it ran that way for 20 years and he would be retired in 20 years. He machined aluminum parts on a contract he had and he had 4 machines making the same part. Nothing to accurate. I say to make the groove wider then deeper. I say cut them 2/3 the depth and 3/16 to a 1/4" wide. Never cut thru it accept where the oil hole is.
Pic L to R The Kitamura job and Blanchard Grinder Turcite rebuild

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