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Way Repair

Chip Shaver

Plastic
Joined
Nov 2, 2019
So I've seen a few way repair threads with various ideas. In industrial fabrication and automotive body welding to avoid warping material we would warm the area gradually, apply a tack weld, and just before the red heat color disappears apply another one, repeating until the space is filled. Does anyone know with any certainty if you could use this technique on hardened ways in place on the lathe and stone grind to finish? It would also leave a hardened repair similar to the ways.
 
What kind of ways, cast iron, or steel?

Welding on cast with steel rods will give a very hard deposit and very prone to cracking because of the lack of ductility. The deposit is not really peen friendly either. Little tacks will also be full of porosity most likely. It would look awful and take an extremely long time to do. I don't think you can eliminate the possibility of warping, because the upsetting effect of all those little tacks add up. No one can perfectly peen out the stress of a weld whilst in the process of doing the welding.

If doing a bedway rebuild, I think it makes the most sense to just machine a layer off until you get down near to the bottom of the most worn area.
 
No massive (as opposed to micro) heat process will work ,due to the tiny dimensions involved......the only practical method is electroplating,with either nickle or hardchrome ,and grinding.......There are more costly technical methods that might be applied if you had a military or NASA budget like vacuum electron deposition or micro laser welding.
 
So I've seen a few way repair threads with various ideas. In industrial fabrication and automotive body welding to avoid warping material we would warm the area gradually, apply a tack weld, and just before the red heat color disappears apply another one, repeating until the space is filled. Does anyone know with any certainty if you could use this technique on hardened ways in place on the lathe and stone grind to finish? It would also leave a hardened repair similar to the ways.

Been covered on PM. More than once.

Short answer is that planing/milling then re-grinding & scraping or at least flaking are the only predictable methods as to time and cost, and not always justifiable, even so.

The more exotic methods are less predictable as to outcomes at any cost, tend to be rudely expensive, hence justified ONLY when the machine-tool is exceptionally valuable, near-as-dammit impossible to replace AND can justify whatever it is expected to produce in revenue.

Gots to keep in mind that labour is never free, so the point can come where it actually makes sense to buy - or even design and make - a whole NEW machine, outright.

Which happens. Often enough to put a great many USED machines into the market.

If the entity as sold those used machine-tools found it cheaper to buy new than rebuild?

What did they know about what they sold that you do not YET know?

Could be that it could not justify the cost of rebuild?

What you do as to blood, sweat, tears, empty pockets, patience and dedication out of love, curiosity, desperation, or just because you CAN runs on its own decision system.

There is precious little in the way of shortcuts nor ANY "easy magic" to it, though!
 
I have seen very effective way repairs that had obviously been done with some sort of brass like metal spraying. The over spray was evidence of the repair. I've watched metal spraying being done on chilled iron rolls etc but not on machine tool ways

Regards Tyrone.
 
I have seen very effective way repairs that had obviously been done with some sort of brass like metal spraying. The over spray was evidence of the repair. I've watched metal spraying being done on chilled iron rolls etc but not on machine tool ways

Regards Tyrone.

Some of the threads on PM it was discussed for machine- tool ways. Large and industrial, though, not smallholder nor hobby.

Not a cheap process nor assured of success, even with very good pre-prep. Stresses are not as uniform nor predictable on a way as on a roll.

Also not the only work needed before a given machine becomes usable again.

If it is still going to need be sent off to go onto a bedway grinder to put the buildup true?

Is there still any savings in it vs just grinding deeper?

Times change, labour value changes. Decisions on rebuildability change.

I grew up in an era where it seemed a quarter of the population rode about on "recapped" tires. Even with GREATLY improved machinery and technology they only still make sense for city motorbus, ag/off-road, construction, and certain over-the-road fleet operators.

Passengers cars and light trucks? Not so much. Motor bikes? Hope not!

So, too light lathes and mills. Economics. Time management/shortage. Not just skill.
 
Some of the threads on PM it was discussed for machine- tool ways. Large and industrial, though, not smallholder nor hobby.

Not a cheap process nor assured of success, even with very good pre-prep. Stresses are not as uniform nor predictable on a way as on a roll.

Also not the only work needed before a given machine becomes usable again.

If it is still going to need be sent off to go onto a bedway grinder to put the buildup true?

Is there still any savings in it vs just grinding deeper?

Times change, labour value changes. Decisions on rebuildability change.

I grew up in an era where it seemed a quarter of the population rode about on "recapped" tires. Even with GREATLY improved machinery and technology they only still make sense for city motorbus, ag/off-road, construction, and certain over-the-road fleet operators.

Passengers cars and light trucks? Not so much. Motor bikes? Hope not!

So, too light lathes and mills. Economics. Time management/shortage. Not just skill.

One repair was on the saddle of a big " Richards " Hor Bore, the other one was on the ways of a little " Elliot " Omnispeed centre lathe. Both repairs were excellent with no signs of any drop out.

Regards Tyrone.
 
Even with GREATLY improved machinery and technology they only still make sense for city motorbus, ag/off-road, construction, and certain over-the-road fleet operators.
Lots of aircraft tires are recapped, the neat thing is that you can buy the caps with a harder durometer which makes them last much longer.
 
Just how big of a repair are we talking about? Pictures please.

I've been using Muggy Weld to repair cast iron for a while now. IF you are just looking to fill a couple of voids it works well. Of course you need to plane, Stress relieve and scrape after brazing the repair.

If you are talking about building up the ways and using them as a bearing surface this stuff would not work. IF you are talking about normal way wear it would be best to plane or ground the ways and then build up the saddle and tail stock to match what was planed off.

That's what I would do... Of course not everyone has a planer, heat oven and scraping equipment in House. :) For most people it's better to just find a machine without the damage.

Here is a short video I just ran out and took to show you a muggy weld repair.

 
One repair was on the saddle of a big " Richards " Hor Bore, the other one was on the ways of a little " Elliot " Omnispeed centre lathe. Both repairs were excellent with no signs of any drop out.

Regards Tyrone.

"Repairs", as with a hunk KNOCKED out of the ways by a crane accident or a crash, I can agree make sense. Usually, the adjacent ways are carrying most of the load and insuring precision as the patch is traversed.

"Rebuild", where most or all of the load-bearing/guiding run length must be built-up is harder to justify on anything LESS than large and costly machines with expensive downtime. The ones that are hard to find a substitute for at any price.

Replaceable miracle plastic or replaceable-outright all-metal is another route.

Another PM member blessed me with 980 lbs Avoir of a superb alloy of Iron to make 'stuff" out of.

It last served as replaceable rectangular ways - rather substantial sized ones, at that - on a "Grand Old class" hor-bore he was parting-out. G&L, I think it was?

Pity the replaceable ways approach hadn't caught-on fifty years earlier, and on more than just Hardinge, Large & Shapely, ATW, and a select few others of the "Grand Olds".

There remains a large enough industry of blade and "knife" (huge shears, not pocket-knife) - grinders for industrial metal, paper, plastic, other shearable goods where wear keeps them busy who can actually re-grind such goods or even make new ones.
 
"Repairs", as with a hunk KNOCKED out of the ways by a crane accident or a crash, I can agree make sense. Usually, the adjacent ways are carrying most of the load and insuring precision as the patch is traversed.

"Rebuild", where most or all of the load-bearing/guiding run length must be built-up is harder to justify on anything LESS than large and costly machines with expensive downtime. The ones that are hard to find a substitute for at any price.

Replaceable miracle plastic or replaceable-outright all-metal is another route.

Another PM member blessed me with 980 lbs Avoir of a superb alloy of Iron to make 'stuff" out of.

It last served as replaceable rectangular ways - rather substantial sized ones, at that - on a "Grand Old class" hor-bore he was parting-out. G&L, I think it was?

Pity the replaceable ways approach hadn't caught-on fifty years earlier, and on more than just Hardinge, Large & Shapely, ATW, and a select few others of the "Grand Olds".

There remains a large enough industry of blade and "knife" (huge shears, not pocket-knife) - grinders for industrial metal, paper, plastic, other shearable goods where wear keeps them busy who can actually re-grind such goods or even make new ones.

These repairs were of the usual lubrication starvation induced " fire up " type scoring on cast iron slideways. The material appeared to be quite an hard brass powder.

REgards Tyrone.
 
Yes you could be right regarding bronze. That's what it looked like.

Regards Tyrone.

I remember Herr Pelz telling me he had seen Bronze chisels before he left the Weimar Reich. The notorius tomb-raider Heinrich Schliemann had brought them back to Germany from the Middle East. They would shear mild steel, more than once, hold an edge.

May have been a trace of natural Arsenic in the copper or tin ore? And/or a lot more to the mystery. "Mystery" in that era. No longer so. Only "mystery" is where they disappeared to, wars, looters, "private collections" and sech as they are!

Most alloys in the ancient world were "standard" only by specifying a mixture of ores from specific mines. It was a whole long while before anyone knew how to test for various elements. or even knew "elements" existed.

"The craft" was to copy whatever worked, and hand it down to the next generation as close-held secrets so the 'prentices had a shot at a better living that toting shit out to the grain fields, dump, do it again better and faster.

Kind like mastering a hor-bore, actually... Most mixed shops, there sat the king of the hill. Our lead man, second shift - also Shop Steward - bout half had me convinced God himself had apprenticed under his proud tutelage.

Young and green or no, knew it HAD to be BS - if only 'coz the FIRST shift hor-bore Brother had Seniority!

:D
 








 
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