What's new
What's new

Can someone check out my surface grinder ways in these videos?

razoredgeknives

Plastic
Joined
Sep 6, 2019
just want to double check these look good as far as you can tell? Any thoughts or things you can see I need to address? I didn't pull the saddle off because it would have been a pain to disconnect all the hydraulic lines.

 
In the second video, at 18 seconds the oil groove is IMO too long (to the outside of the bearing surface) and can allow oil to bleed out to the sides too easily. I'd have prefered a long diagonal cut that didn't get so close to the edges.

Otherwise, the ways look pretty good to me, seem nice and uniform.

Didn't watch the first vid.
 
At a glance they good to me. I see what Milland is saying, the groove does go right to the edge. The table way is wider though so should be ok imo. You could clock the worn to unworn areas on the table for difference, but looking at it id doubt theyd be much.

Cheers
D
 
It looks fantastic! I think this is one of the traditional approaches. The longer way is ground and the shorter one is scraped to match with half-moon oil pockets added as the final step.

What machine is this? How old is it? Do you know if it has been used a lot?

If this is a decades-old machine with lots of use, I would say that the people who built it knew exactly what they were doing. Including the size/location of the oil grooves. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Put in the recommended oil, make sure that the filters are clean, and treat it with respect.

Cheers,
Bruce
 
Last edited:
surfaces look good, not much wear at all, but why the question? is there a particular problem that prompted the disassembly and the question?

one thing to check while everything is disassembled - blue up the table ways, as thin as you can, and try to get a print on the scraped ways, just to make sure there hasn't been any warpage that might result in rocking and subsequent issues while grinding
 
If this is a decades-old machine with lots of use, I would say that the people who built it knew exactly what they were doing. Including the size/location of the oil grooves. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Put in the recommended oil, make sure that the filters are clean, and treat it with respect.

Cheers,
Bruce
That right there. If that is the case then regardless of anyones opinion, the guys that put this machine together did good! :)
 
It looks fantastic! I think this is one of the traditional approaches. The longer way is ground and the shorter one is scraped to match with half-moon oil pockets added as the final step.

What machine is this? How old is it? Do you know if it has been used a lot?

If this is a decades-old machine with lots of use, I would say that the people who built it knew exactly what they were doing. Including the size/location of the oil grooves. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Put in the recommended oil, make sure that the filters are clean, and treat it with respect.

Cheers,
Bruce

Thanks Bruce. Yeah it is from the 80's or 90's,so definitely an older machine. I got it from a college machine shop when they upgraded. One thing I like about this Harig is that the oil pump makes way oil constantly flush the ways and lead screws with oil which is then filtered and re-circulated.

surfaces look good, not much wear at all, but why the question? is there a particular problem that prompted the disassembly and the question?

one thing to check while everything is disassembled - blue up the table ways, as thin as you can, and try to get a print on the scraped ways, just to make sure there hasn't been any warpage that might result in rocking and subsequent issues while grinding

Well after it's been sitting for a few days the transverse direction gets stuck and I have to try to turn the wheel while pulling on the end of the table to get it unstuck - after that it is smooth with no issues. But I mainly just pulled it apart to make sure everything looked good and clean the oil drain and coolant drain areas so nothing gets clogged.

So how do I get a print? Sorry not familiar with that although I do have dykem...
 
Well after it's been sitting for a few days the transverse direction gets stuck and I have to try to turn the wheel while pulling on the end of the table to get it unstuck - after that it is smooth with no issues.

By "transverse" direction, do you mean the long left-right travel direction which normally has the hydraulic feed? I suppose that's right, since the other direction is normally called the cross-feed.

What you are describing is not necessarily a problem. If the machine is sitting for a few days or longer, the pressure of the table against the ways can force the way oil out, so that the top and bottom parts "wring" together like gage blocks. This can lead to galling of the ways but your machine shows no sign of that.

Try this: when you first turn on the machine, let it sit for a few minutes while way oil is circulated and pushed under pressure between the table and ways, BEFORE you try to move the table by hand or under hydraulic feed. If you do this, can you easily break the table loose with the handwheel? If not, then you might need to deepen the oil pockets (half-moon scrapes) in the bottom way so that they hold oil. Or potentially modify the oil grooves or scrape some oil pockets on the bottom of the table.

One other thing to check. If this machine uses the same oil for the hydraulic system and for the way lubrication, make sure it's the correct stuff that Harig calls for in their documentation. For example on my surface grinder and cylindrical grinder I use Shell Tonna S3 M 32 and 68. These have tackifiers and other additives that make them good for lubricating ways, but also work well as hydraulic oil.

If you just got the machine and are not sure what oil is in it, then I suggest that you start by changing the hydraulic/way oil for whatever was recommended by Harig, and see if the problem persists.
 
They look really good to me. The ones in the first video look like they have a very modest amount of consistent wear. The only way they could be a bit better is if you had them scraped properly to help with oil retention.

The ones in the second video look excellent.
 
Hey, your Harig looks almost like ours. I found the date in the castings. Ours is from 11 24 99 D and the saddle is from 9 23 99 D

So did you, or are you cleaning out that little 'v' groove on the way? Is it just crud, grinding grit, stuck in there? I'm waiting to learn this before I put ours back together.

We bought a gallon of Harig Way Oil from MSC Industrial. Figured we should use the original stuff seeing as it's available and it appears to work well with the machine. Keep up the good work
 








 
Back
Top