Lathe gib replacement

When the gibs (or strip piece as some are referred to) on your lathe wears out to a point when you cannot adjust them with screws , your carriage gains play and this causes the loss of accuracy. At this point your only option is the replacement of your gib with a thicker one.

The gibs on our eshop are manufactured longer on purpose to provide more flexibility during the exchange. We also offer them in several thicknesses, scaled by 0,5 mm, to reduce the amount of work.

Example

The required length for the cross carriage gib for small SN lathes (SN40, SN45 or SN50) is approximately 595 mm. The gibs in our offer are 650 mm, so you can cut out the required part in the most effortless way.

So if your required thickness is 6,65 mm, you do not need a 7 mm one, but in this case you can go for the 6,5 mm and you cut it off at the point needed.

Gibs available in our eshop

We offer replacement gibs for the following machines:

• SV18 cross slide
• SV18 tool slide
• SN40-50 cross slide
• SN40-50 tool slide

Note:

• both gibs for SV18R, SV18RA and SV18RD are the same
• both gibs for SN40, SN45 and SN50 are the same

Finishing the gib

All gibs are semifinished products and need to be surface ground to suit your lathe. Don’t worry about any special preparations fix the gib for working. All you need to do is to use the old gib against the new one to achieve a parallel surface. The gibs need to be finished on a surface grinder with a magnetic table.

Always measure the gib on the thinner end, as this dimension defines the nominal size of the gib.

The thicker end is intentionally oversized and must be fitted (machined or scraped) during installation.