I took my g0704 apart to try to figure out some bad stick slip problems I was having on the Y axis (The ball screw has no measurable backlash with a .0005 DTI but total system error was .006! on the Y depending on the table position which made backlash comp kind of useless as it varied significantly across the travel). It turns out the the ways on the base are not coplanar at all. With the cross slide scraped flat and level I literally had .01 of diagonal rock on the Y (measured gap).
My options are:
scrape the cross slide to fit the base and live with the resulting table twist.
buy a straight edge casting and spend days trying to fix the base
replace the base and hope I get a better one.
pack it full of tannerite and see how tough cast iron is!
What would you do?
I kind of post this in hope that people who are completely new to this all like I was check these things before their warranty is up. If I had known how to check mine and done so this whole thing would have been returned ASAP but unfortunately I am about 3 months past the end of my warranty. Before I took it apart you could shine a flashlight through the right side of the base and y axis mating surfaces with the gib in place and see light on the other side. (from right to left)