What the part is telling you about the machine
Cavco diagnoses machine tools from the part they are making, not from the component that failed. Chatter, taper, a bore out of square, a slide that sticks, a spindle that runs hot. Each of those points at a short list of causes, and measuring the machine tells you which. We come out, measure, and tell you what we found, whether or not the fix is ours.
What it usually means
None of these is a diagnosis, and anyone who gives you one over the phone is guessing. They are the short lists we start from, and the reason measuring is quick once you know which list you are on.
- Worn or loaded ways, a slide with too much clearance, or a spindle losing its bearings. The tool and the speeds get blamed first and are usually not the reason on a machine that used to cut clean.
- The axis is no longer parallel to the spindle, or the ways are worn more at one end of their travel than the other. On a lathe it is often the tailstock as well.
- Alignment between axes, most often after a crash or a move. Something has shifted and nothing has been measured since.
- Ways that are scored or dry, gibs that will not adjust out any further, or a lube system that has quietly stopped delivering.
- A worn ball screw and nut, lost preload, or a gearbox with play in it. Positioning error that shows up as a scrapped first part on a program that used to run.
- Bearings, preload, or the geometry around the spindle rather than the cartridge itself. Which one it is decides whether this is a small job or a large one.
- Lube system, seals, way covers and wipers. The cheapest thing on this list to fix and the most expensive to keep ignoring, because everything above wears faster without it.
- Clamping, the drive, or a shot pin. Usually mechanical even when the alarm is an electrical one.
The component that failed is rarely the reason
A bearing that has gone three times in two years is not a bearing problem. A way cover nobody replaced let grit in, the lube never reached the surface it was meant to, and the wear that followed threw the alignment out, which loaded the bearing in a direction it was never meant to carry. Replace the bearing and you buy eight months.
That is the whole argument for measuring before quoting. It is also why our repair work starts here rather than at the parts list, and why the answer is sometimes a geometric rebuild of one axis instead of the four separate repairs you were expecting.
How we measure
Two types of laser, precision electronic indicators, two types of electronic level, and metrology software for plotting way surfaces and checking alignments. The instruments read the machine where it stands, against itself and against its original tolerances. Where you want the survey on its own rather than as the front half of a repair, that is our alignment and metrology work, and you can buy it by itself.
Questions we get
- On a machine that used to cut clean, chatter is usually the machine rather than the tooling. Worn or loaded ways, a slide with clearance in it, or a spindle losing its bearings will all produce it, because they let the tool move when it should not. Changing speeds and feeds can mask it for a while, which is why it tends to come back.
- The carriage is no longer travelling parallel to the spindle axis. That is either wear in the ways, most often worst near the chuck where the machine has done the most work, or the tailstock sitting off centre, or the headstock itself out of alignment. Measuring tells you which, and the three have very different fixes.
- Measurement settles it, which is the useful thing about a survey. If the geometry is inside tolerance, the answer is process and we will say so plainly rather than sell you a rebuild. If the geometry has gone, no amount of care at the handles gets the part back.
- It depends what you already know. Where one machine is making one bad part, a targeted check of that axis is usually enough. Where a fleet is drifting, or nobody has measured anything in years, a full geometry survey is the cheaper answer because it stops you fixing the wrong machine.
- Almost always. Lasers, electronic levels and indicators read the machine as it stands, and a test cut tells us a great deal. Stripping happens once we know what we are looking for, not to find out.
- The measurements, what they mean, and what we would do about it in what order. If part of that is not worth doing, that is in there too.
Reviewed September 2026 by Cavco Machine Tool Rebuilding, LLC.
Tell us what the part looks like
Call, or send the machine and what you are seeing. You do not need to know what is wrong with it. That is the job.