TAPERED SADDLE GIBS MODIFICATION

The idea and design of these tapered saddle gibs come thanks of Rick Kruger. For full details go here.

This picture shows the parts of the saddle gibs.


Completed gib for front of saddle.


Here gibby, gibby, gibby.

The tapered gibs in place.


After machining the gibs and the holders on the taper jig I discovered that the blocks weren't truly parallel and that the gib stood up a couple of thou higher at one end. In the end I superglued the gib to the holder and machined both flat together. That got the tapers spot on.

Once the gibs were offered up I noticed that the shoulder on the near side was hitting the crank rack. Tricky, the lathe was in bits and I couldn't turn them down so I stuck the rotary table on the mill, whacked a Sherline chuck on to it and then used an end mill to shave the shoulder down till it cleared the rack. All told, I'm very happy with this mod.