ahhh, just thought id mention it in this thread than start a new one for such a trivial thing.
i made end caps and wipers for my ballnuts a while back. just leather washers for the wipers.. they did work but they also reduced one axis' movement by at least 10mm.
the other month, i suddenly though of what to use. pipecleaners! get the fuzzy ones. wind em in the thread for at least 1.5 full turns, then bend and tie the end over to the nut.
my previous leather wipers would always let some swarf collect in the crests of the thread, which was slowly making a mess.
not too mention the difficulty in getting them to wipe rather than get ingested by the screw! very critical on the hole size and the nick required to follow the thread.
i have tried 1/8 thick o-rings (my ball size) cut and wound on the thread...same deal. they let swarf build on the crests.
the pipecleaner tends to have fluffy bits here and catch everything.
on my nuts at least... the ball return has those little tags, which stops the loose end of the pipecleaner going in too far. and one end of the nut has at least four turns of thread unused. (thomson 0.675x0.2")
just tore the mill down as i now have a surface plate so i can scrape it... and the ballnuts are SPOTLESS inside after chewing up plenty of brass and ally bits.. no more two day cleanout jobs!
obviously this is really only for the home built things rather than a real machine with decent swarf guards as standard... and when clearance is seriously limited.
thomson do make proper wiper kits to suit but when one has limited income... and a job that needs doing NOW....