Originally Posted by cdmurphy

Not necessarily, just labor intensive, and not always possible. Assuming the taper isn't completely shot, and there is enough material left to clean the taper up without bottoming out, you can do it. I salvaged an otherwise nice Deore crankset where the drive side crank had been ridden loose, and was somewhat wallowed out, and a bit rounded. My first clue was after installing it without inspecting the taper too closely, I couldn't get rid of a persistent creak. Turns out it was the taper. I was able to carefully use machinists blue to coat a good spindle, and then insert it into the bad taper. The blue would transfer to the high spots, and could be seen once it was removed. I then, very carefully used a small file to remove just the blue spots. Repeat this cycle maybe 20-30 times, and eventually the spindle made good contact everywhere. I tightened it properly, and didn't have any trouble for at least a thousand miles of hard use. When I finally pulled it, the taper looked great, without any signs of fretting.