Cheap surface plate ?

[magpieParticipant @magpie]

Granite surface plates ?

[magpieParticipant @magpie]

Just been to ALDI and noticed they have granite "worktop savers" for about £8.00. Look to be about 20mm thick,and i thought they may be ok as a makeshift surface plate.

Cheers Derek.

P.S. merry christmas,and happy new year to everyone.

[ZiggarParticipant @ziggar]

been using one for the last 6 months or so
got mine from Morrisons, think a tenner was paid for it

i seen the ones in Aldi yesterday, they are the dead same thing

certainly good enough for the crap i turn out

[Martin Walsh 1Participant @martinwalsh1]

An Old mirror makes a good surface plate

Best wishes Martin

[speelwerkParticipant @speelwerk]

Do we have any knowledge under what kind of circumstances these cheap goods are made. If they are produced under similar working conditions as other cheap imports from China, India etc., than we have to ask ourselves do we want to buy them.

Niko.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

I tried a Morrison "worktop saver" as a more mobile plate (the iron one is really heavy), but it was far from flat, so has been dumped.

Go to your local glass works and search for an offcut of thick float glass, but have the edges ground!

[AndyfParticipant @andyf]

My granite chopping board (I forget where it came from) wasn't acceptably flat, so I went to a local supplier of made-to-order granite worktops, and asked if I could buy an offcut like a sink cutout to use as a surface plate. They took me to the skip, and let me help myself for nothing. I got two likely looking bits, and sliding my DTI around on its stand shows no more than half a thou deviation anywhere, which is good enough for my purposes.

Andy

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Hi Folks

I also got a piece of polished black granite from a worktop manufacturers (sink cutout) 20" x18" x 1" free gratis.. ran my digital DTI over it & like Andyf it showed maximum deviation at one corner of half a thou'.. I aint arguing over that, more than good enough for model engineering needs.

Merry Xmas folks

George.

[Mark P.Participant @markp]

Got my polished granite slab 12" x 14" x 2.5" from the local monumental masons for about £5

Regards Mark P.

[Phil H 1Participant @philh1]

Derek,

What size are the Aldi specials – approx LxW?

PhilH

[magpieParticipant @magpie]

Phil.

Sorry, but i was being hurried round by my much better half so i did not have time for a propper look, but i would think they are about 18" x 15".

Cheers Derek

[GaryMParticipant @garym]

They are also sold at Argos for £7.99. I bought one two weeks ago. I'm hoping it will be flat enough for my needs, but haven't checked it yet. Got the idea from a previous thread on here.

Gary

[jim bothParticipant @jimboth37830]

i used a kitchen worktop saver from Asda for a few years, but now i'm kitting up to do some paid work i've bought one of these **LINK** very good for price also came with a calibration cert, having checked it as best i can it appears to well within the stated 0,002mm.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

How about this for a 'show off'. I used to use some laminated glass samples that were sent in for the TSR2 windscreen tests. They were made of 6mm toughened glass,18mm silicone layer and a gold flashed 4mm glass sandwich. Must have cost a pretty penny, but I found out that they were probably bullet proof, but did not survive the drop test on the concrete workshop floor.

Shop window plate glass is good – get some offcuts from a big glass merchant for free.

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

I still have a large sheet of plate glass about the size of one of my benches, came off a computer cabinet ( that's when computers were about 5 foot tall and stored a very small amount of data compared to today in very large platters).
Bob

[Ray LyonsParticipant @raylyons29267]

I use a piece of plate glass from the front of an old TV. It is tough and all the edges are ground. Fits nicely on the bench and just slides down by the side when not in use.

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

I too bought a granite board from Argos I think, but soon found it was not flat: it has now been relegated to kitchen use. So I am back to using the piece of float glass.

Ray,

I'm intrigued – all the TV screens I have seen are curved, certainly on the outside anyway, do not know about the inside. Could you elaborate a bit more please as there are lots of redundant TV's about.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Ray Lyons on 25/12/2012 07:20:20:

I use a piece of plate glass from the front of an old TV. It is tough and all the edges are ground. Fits nicely on the bench and just slides down by the side when not in use.

Only problem with that Ray is that you have to keep remaking things that you measured on the plate glass because all the repeats keep coming out the TV glass.

[SteambuffParticipant @steambuff]

I would guess that the glass TV screen is from a "Flat Screen" Plasma or LCD TV and not a old CRT. (Unless it had a sheet of plain glass in the front.

Dave

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Posted by Steambuff on 25/12/2012 12:25:33:

I would guess that the glass TV screen is from a "Flat Screen" Plasma or LCD TV and not a old CRT. (Unless it had a sheet of plain glass in the front.

Dave

Hi the last TV I had with a CRT was a 32" Panasonic, and this was a flat CRT screen. These needed extra circuitry in them apparantly, to give the picture the correct shape. This is what the TV engineer told me when he came out to look at a picture fault and it had to go back to a workshop to be fixed. They supplied me with a replacement TV of the same model from one of their other depots, I was renting my TV in them days.

I don't know how truely flat the glass was though.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 26/12/2012 08:40:35

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Steambuff on 25/12/2012 12:25:33:

I would guess that the glass TV screen is from a "Flat Screen" Plasma or LCD TV and not a old CRT. (Unless it had a sheet of plain glass in the front.

Dave

Dave,

Back in the old days, CRT's were sometimes behind a "safety panel" of toughened, or laminated, glass.

MichaelG.

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

I thought all CRT TV's had a thick, 20mm or so, protective front to protect against the danger of implosion from a breaking tube. My oscilloscopes don't have a separate protector, but they do appear to have a very thick front screen, 10mm or so.

I would certainly have expected Ray's old TV to have been a CRT. LED, LCD, Plasma as far as I know don't need the same sort of protection as there is no danger of a tube implosion spraying glass everywhere.

Peter G. Shaw

[SteambuffParticipant @steambuff]

We have a 12 year old Panasonic CRT TV and a 25 Year old Sony CRT TV, neither of them seem to have a protective sheet of glass/plastic in front of the screen. The front surface seems to be part of the CRT. (It my be thicker though)

Dave

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 26/12/2012 11:08:49:

I thought all CRT TV's had a thick, 20mm or so, protective front to protect against the danger of implosion from a breaking tube.

Peter G. Shaw

 

Peter,

The later ones did

But back in the early 1970s we were still seeing trade-ins with the separate protective glass.

MichaelG.

 

P.S.   There is some useful info here

Oscilloscope tubes were always relatively safe because of their proportions.

… or maybe I'm wrong about 'scope tubes [see here]

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 26/12/2012 13:19:18

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 26/12/2012 13:46:56

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

When my dad had his own TV rental business he had a special technique for destroying failed tubes.

It was built on a steep hill, so there was a full storey basement where he stored old tellies and there was a shed right across the back, creating an open area sheltered from all directions.

He would place the tube on the ground face down with carpet or similar on top, then drop a brick on the neck of the tube from the steps about 12 feet above.

Neil

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