My little Busy Bee X2 seems to have two table settings based on the gib screws - nice and loose with noticeable slop, or no slop but real stiff.
The biggest help with this has been loosening the adjusting screws on the X-axis leadnut - before, if you had the gibs tightened enough to remove most of the slop, the table would stop moving halfway. Obviously some alignment issue with the leadnut and the leadscrew. Loosening the bolts that hold it on made backlash go to all hell but made the table consistent through its whole travel.
Soaking the ways in oil made the table at least movable in both axes, but I was fiddling with an RF45 clone the other day and those handwheels are silky smooth. What do I have to do to my X2 to make the handwheels as smooth as that?
The X2 on display at Busy Bee is nice and smooth but it also has a half inch of play in either axis...
Does anyone have any good instructional links on way + gip strip lapping?