Machine tool rebuilding, back to specification
Cavco rebuilds machine tools back to their original specification, whole machines and single axes alike. A geometric rebuild restores a slide, an axis or a table to spec against the rest of the machine, which is most of what a working tool room actually needs. Way grinding and scraping happen inside that work rather than instead of it. We have done this since 1980.
It is the work the company is named after, and it has not changed much in forty-five years, because the thing that makes a machine accurate has not changed either.
Most machines do not need a full teardown
A machine tool rarely wears out all at once. One axis carries the work and goes first, and the rest of the machine is still sound underneath it. A geometric rebuild takes that axis, or that slide or table, back to specification and back into line with everything around it. The accuracy returns, the machine keeps its place on the floor, and the bill is a fraction of a complete rebuild.
That is the job we are asked for most, and the one most often quoted elsewhere as something bigger. When a machine genuinely is worn through, a full rebuild is the right answer and we will say so, but we will not sell you one to avoid finding out.
What a rebuild involves
The order matters as much as the list. Surfaces come back first, then the parts that run on them, then the whole machine is brought into agreement with itself and measured.
- The machine comes apart far enough to see what is actually worn, and what we find is what you are quoted on. Guessing at this stage is where rebuild prices go wrong.
- Reground, scraped, or lined in Turcite, Moglice or Rulon, depending on how much metal has to move and whether the ways are hardened.
- Runout, heat and noise. Rebuilt or replaced, and set back true to the machine rather than just true to itself.
- Backlash and lost position out. New screws preloaded and aligned to the ways, gearboxes and drives put right.
- The part that makes it a geometric rebuild. Each axis is brought back into agreement with the others, with lasers and electronic levels, not only with its own original form.
- The geometry the machine finished on, written down and handed over, so back to spec is a number you hold rather than an assurance you were given.
The way surfaces themselves are restored by hand and power scraping, and where the ways are hardened and badly worn, by grinding them in place so the machine never leaves your floor. Those are the techniques inside a rebuild, not alternatives to one.
A fleet is best rebuilt on a rotation
Where a plant runs several of the same machine, the best way to buy this work is in turn, on a cycle, rather than when one of them fails an inspection. A rotation keeps the whole fleet inside tolerance, spreads the cost across years instead of landing it in one, and turns an emergency into a scheduled outage you chose the date for. Some of the machines we look after have come back on that basis every one to three years.
Toolroom and production lathes, Hardinge above all. Bridgeport and larger mills, boring mills from Wotan, Scharmann, DeVlieg and Giddings & Lewis. Bullard and other vertical turret lathes. Surface, cylindrical and specialty grinders from Brown & Sharpe, Mattison, Okamoto, Kellenberger and Studer. Broaching machines, their rams and their index tables. Press brakes. If yours is not here, ask.
Questions we get
- Restoring a slide, an axis or a table to specification against the rest of the machine, rather than taking the whole machine apart. The worn surfaces are brought back, the axis is realigned to every other axis, and the geometry is measured and recorded. It is the job most tool rooms need and the one most often quoted as something bigger.
- Usually not. A machine rarely wears out all at once. One axis carries the work and goes first, and putting that axis back to spec returns the accuracy without the cost and the downtime of a complete teardown. Where a machine really is worn through, we say so, and a full rebuild is the honest answer.
- Flatness, straightness, squareness and parallelism, checked against the machine's own original tolerances and against the other axes, not against how it felt before. We measure before, work to those numbers, and measure again at the end. You get the figures the machine finished on.
- Often, and it turns on the castings. An older machine tool was built heavy, and that mass and stiffness is what holds accuracy. When the iron is sound and only the wear surfaces have gone, a rebuild returns a machine that a new one at the same money will not match. When the iron is cracked or the machine was light to begin with, replacing it is the better answer and we will tell you that.
- Yes, and it is the way this work is best bought. Where a plant runs several of the same machine, rebuilding them in turn on a cycle keeps the whole fleet inside tolerance and turns an emergency into a schedule. Some of the machines we look after have come back every one to three years for that reason.
- Both, and the machine usually decides. Small and mid size machines come to our shop in Connecticut. Large machines that cannot be moved without weeks of downtime get rebuilt where they stand, including grinding the ways in place with a proprietary process.
Reviewed September 2026 by Cavco Machine Tool Rebuilding, LLC.
Tell us the machine and what it has stopped holding
Call, or send the make and model and what the geometry or the finish is doing. We answer the same day.