when to stop lapping? and unseen un finished parts....

[dwentz]

I would put it together and run it. Be sure to put some good way oil on the surfaces (I use Mobile, I got from Enco). I don't think I would exercise it more than you already have.

I am working on a 40 year old atlas shaper that still has all the milling marks on the castings, and I have torn into lots of old american machines that you could still see the machining marks on after many years of use. They all seemed fine.

Dale

 

[vlmarshall]

As long as it's straight and flat, leave the milling marks. Nicely scraped ways have lots of 'pits' in them, for oil retention, like you said. Two polished surfaces would end up wrung together like gauge blocks.