Taking Johns suggestion on board I made the missing Gib today for the mill, thanks John

, so simple but yet again I was thinking too hard.....
Better show you what I'm on about, or not as it's missing.......I seem to be finding a few bits missing...but nearly there now...

The Gib, 10" long 1.5" wide and 1/2" thick....or it should be.......

I apologise in advance for the quality of the pictures, I must stop letting the camera decide where to focus...


Still not sure what I mean? Here's a closer view.

I decided to make a new one from some mild steel bar donated by Ralph, it just happened to be the perfect size, bar cutting to length...ta Ralph...

As I didn't have to machine the whole surface to the same thickness I could afford to clamp the bar flat to the machine bed like so

I used a pair of upside down T-Nuts as stops to square the bar and then checked with a dial. Amazingly the bar needed no adjustment...
Not sure how clear this will be but hopefully you can see what I mean by not machining the to the same thickness. There is a step here.

This is one half machined, this bit bolts to the bit that slides on the knee, what-ever-it's-called. I added two more clamps but it hardly made much difference to the finish over two clamps.

A closer view.....

now I don't know much about anything but considering this was being machined with not one but two Gibs missing and the bed only being held on by pure gravity I was pretty chuffed with the finish. If you were to turn the mill upside down to rescue the pennies the bed would quite literally fall off....!!
The clamps were moved over "one by one" so as not to disturb the positioning of the bar and the other half was milled to size roughly 0.070" higher than the finished side.
Then it was flipped over, centre drilled, drilled and counter bored for the fixing bolts.

A diamond stone was tickled all over to make sure there were no high spots or sharp edges and then it was trial fitted.

Lovely.......

I've left enough meat to need a couple of thou or so shims under the clamped edge to allow for some initial bedding in and longer term wear.
Overall this looks like a permanent fix/repair......

Just waiting for some new bolts to be delivered as I only have 3 of 11 needed....more missing bits.....
