[joedesu1]

Hello all!
Recently decommissioned a huge grinding machine in the shop I worked for and snagged up some goodies from the machine. There were some bolt on hardened steel ways that are in fairly good condition. They are 48"x3"x1" and I have 2 of them. I am wondering a few things and searching for advice as well as examples of DIY builds if possible. I plan on building a smaller albiet heavy duty cnc mill with them and am wondering about what other people have done. I am a precision grinder and will use our cnc creep feed/reciprocate to clean up the ways and make sure they are flat and parallel to .0001" or better :-) I was thinking about using bearings on the ways in lieu of the traditional gib and surface contact set ups, but this seems like it comes with its own set of issues. Looking at our cnc grinder, which has 1-1/4" ballscrews and 2 box ways per axis, it seems as though the ball screw is the only things holding the table down vertically, which seems like it isnt enough and seems a bit strange to me. This machine however is able to creep feed off .100+ of RC60 material at 12ipm (slow but its hardenened material!!!) with zero issues. So what I am wondering is is this worth my time to use these ways and come up with a system for the machine? Thanks!

[RCaffin]

You can probably put some spring-loaded roller bearings underneath somewhere to hold it down?
But with a cast iron bed and with 4' length, I suspect the idea was that the table was not going to go anywhere unexpected. :-)

Cheers
Roger