Dovetail Straight Edge Required

[Graham Horne 2Participant @grahamhorne2]

I need a dovetail straight edge to print with for scraping the ways on my Centec 2B mill. I am struggling to find one to buy and got to thinking there must be plenty out there that engineers don’t need all the time but also don’t want to get rid of either. A bit like my engineers level that sits in its box but I still don’t won’t to sell it (my kids will do that). Maybe I thought if someone has one that’s not too far away they may want to rent the straight edge too me for few weeks so I can complete this job of scraping the ways. Of course I am only using it to print blue on the ways as I scrape them flat.

So my ask is if you of someone you know wants to sell or rent a dovetail straight edge to allow me to complete this project? I am near Daventry/Coventry area.

[Pete RimmerParticipant @peterimmer30576]

What is the longest way that you need to print? I have several, collected over quite a few years, some scraped from machined castings. I would not let one go but I could loan one out if you could collect it from Kent.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

You could try HR Lamb but new ones might be quite expensive.
https://www.lambco-machinery.com/products

When I needed similar, I ended up machining up a lump of spare cast iron, sawn from a bus bar fish plate about 12″ long.
It’s the bit with the cream rusty rounded end, here in use on the vertical ways of a small surface grinder
The other one is a 45° dovetail, but I only had some steel plate available for that.
I actually used a Centec to machine it before scraping, but that might be awkward if the Centec you’re re-building is your only mill.

Bill

[Author]

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