What’s this for?

[beeza650Participant @beeza650]

I’m not sure the best way to do this. I have bought loads of stuff and I don’t know that a lot of it is for. I will probably do one long thread unless anyone has a better idea.

OK first up..whats this. It feels old and jolly well made. The pins do move, we’ll one does a bit.

What’s it for please, what are the pins and fine tilt for. Is the v to go on a lathe bed? Thanks

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Use it on surface plate, for scribing lines on your workpiece.

… I’m going out now, but confident that others will fill-in the details

MichaelG.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Marking gauge. Missing the scriber so an early project for you. The pins are let down and act as a limit enabling it to be run along the edge of a table for marking parallel lines.

[Andrew CrowParticipant @andrewcrow91475]

It’s a scribing block for marking out work, at the moment it is incomplete but in some of your earlier photos the other part which fits on long round bar and holds the actual scriber is there.

Andy

[David George 1Participant @davidgeorge1]

Hi Beeza   It is a surface gauge. There should be a knuckle clamp which would hold a dial indicator or a scriber. It is used to check flatness or height and with the scriber in place mark out lines parrallel to the base. It is used on a suface plate usualy or a machine bedway with a flat surface. The two pins are used to run along the edge of a piece or surface plate to check parallelism         I have one I made at collage and although I dont use it very much it is a usfull piece of equipment.

David

[beeza650Participant @beeza650]

Thanks for the replies. What’s the fine tilt screw for and the v in the base? There are actually two. The larger one is not shop bought. Surely I will never need two?

[OldironParticipant @oldiron]

2 sizes always useful. Or set them to 2 different heights for repetitive work. Tilt screw for fine adjustment

He who dies with most tools wins

[Nick HughesParticipant @nickhughes97026]

The ball ended rod is also upside down, the ball end should be down in the bases front “V” notch and is used in conjunction with both a finger DTI and a reference square, for checking vertical faces for squareness.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Michael Murray has a YouTube video giving a useful introduction as to what can be done with these devices in the modern era when paired with a dial gauge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYJhXPHp4tU&t=216s

There are others but that was the first decent one I found.

Originally designed to be used with a holder to carry a deeply engraved ruler exactly perpendicular to a surface plate so these crier point could be set in the appropriate division to make a marking out line at exactly the right height.

This YouTube video is very brief but shows the use of scriber and rule

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk5ylDM5yEI

The Vee in the bottom lets the base sit squarely on a rod or shaft if needed.

Perhaps somewhat overlooked these days when magnetic bases for dial gauge holding and digital or vernier height gauges are readily available at affordable(ish) prices. I pretty much much don’t use mine but I have a decent amount of the flash gear.

Objectively not a device to be overlooked when tooling up on a tight budget.

Concerning the ball end at the top of the main rod it is said that this can also provide a safe parking spot for the point at the bent end of the scriber when stored.  Set the rod and scriber vertical and arrange things so the bent end point is tucked neatly into the groove formed by the junction between ball end and rod. Mine has been that way for “not telling you how many” years.

Clive

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, these may answer your questions.

Regards Nick.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

These are the other bits that go with them, can’t remember the last time I used mine.

[Clive Brown 1Participant @clivebrown1]

Just to drift the thread! I made the GHT scribing block and rule holder ages ago. They get a lot of use. Hardly ever use the Eclipse surface gauge.

[beeza650Participant @beeza650]

Thanks. So a few folk have said theirs is gathering dust. Think I will try and sell the bigger one. I’m getting a bit “down” actually that a lot might not get used by me.

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Mine is sitting on its surface plate.  Both gathering dust – must do some spring cleaning in the workshop!

Russell

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Use the spare one to hold a dial gauge on the lathe bed, also make a little clamp with horizontal bar to act as lathe tool height setting gauge.
When you get a milling machine the two pins running along an edge feature can be used to set the vice square.
If you completely lose interest attach an old cut off spoon in place of the pointer, held horizontal, and use as a steam punk candle holder.

[Bazyle]

On Bazyle Said:

Use the spare one to hold a dial gauge on the lathe bed, also make a little clamp with horizontal bar to act as lathe tool height setting gauge.
When you get a milling machine the two pins running along an edge feature can be used to set the vice square.
If you completely lose interest attach an old cut off spoon in place of the pointer, held horizontal, and use as a steam punk candle holder.

🙂

[beeza650]

On beeza650 Said:

Thanks. So a few folk have said theirs is gathering dust. Think I will try and sell the bigger one. I’m getting a bit “down” actually that a lot might not get used by me.

Don’t jump to conclusions!  Much depends on what you do in the workshop, and what equipment you get.  That builds up over time – this is a hobby that develops in different ways.   Anything from simple basic machining to advanced tool-room technique.

I started out old-school by painting lumps of metal with Blue marking out fluid and scratching fine lines on it.   The method makes much use of the incomplete surface gauge you’re asking about.  Plus the calipers, set-squares and centre punches etc you also picked up.  The gauge can be used to transfer dimensions from a pattern to a job, as when replicating an existing part.

Having a mill fitted with a DRO pretty much eliminated blue marking out in my workshop, but the technique is still useful.   I own one too, and a digital height gauge – rarely used, but both keepers.  In the same vein, your collection has several tool-makers clamps.   They play well with marking out,  but are less valuable the way I do things.  Still occasionally useful though, so I’d be daft to get rid.

By finding a comprehensive collection, you’ve avoided the worst trap, which is buying the same tools new at enormous cost and then discovering many of them are rarely needed!  When the time comes, you will be pleased to have most of that stuff.

Dave

 

 

 

[Nick Hughes]

On Nick Hughes Said:

The ball ended rod is also upside down…

Would you write to Messers Moore and Wright and avail them of this fact please, as their diagram above also repeats the error that you point out.

It might be simpler to say that the device has an application in which the rod is used with the ball end at the bottom.

Having the ball at the top 90% of the time allows you to tuck the bent end of the scriber into the recess below it, reducing blood-letting potential.

[Rod RenshawParticipant @rodrenshaw28584]

I was taught that the ball at the top of the surface gauge post was to assist in replacing the knuckle on the post after it has been removed for some reason. The fit between post and knuckle is very precise on surface gauges made by reputable makers and it is difficult to line up the knuckle so that it will slide onto the post if the post has a plain end. It’s much easier to fit the knuckle onto the ball, which is exactly the same diameter as the post, and then align and slide the monkey onto the post.

[Pete RimmerParticipant @peterimmer30576]

The ball serves dual purpose. Left at the top it allows for easy fitment of clamps onto the stem. When slid through and the holding clamp rotated so that it is now at the bottom, it forms part of an assembly for checking squareness of standing items like bottle squares and angle plates etc.

[beeza650]

On beeza650 Said:

Thanks. So a few folk have said theirs is gathering dust. Think I will try and sell the bigger one. I’m getting a bit “down” actually that a lot might not get used by me.

Don’t get disheartened with what you have bought, you have a lot of very good tools there, some of which you may get more use from as your engineering knowledge increases. I wouldn’t get rid of anything just yet.

Andy

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Andy C is right.

If you dispose of something, very shortly afterwards you will find a use for ot!

The two, pins in the base of the Scribing Block (surface gauge) are meant to push through so that they protrude slightly and can be butted against a machined edge, such as on a Surface Plate, or the edge of a lathe bed, to provide a definite datum location.

If you can’t fond a suitable source for the “monkey block” to clamp the scriber, you could always make one

Ditto for the scriber.

The illustrations of the Moore and Wright catalogue (And the items circled in green by Jason) will show you what you are looking for.

The scriber could be made from a piece of 1/8″ mild, or silver, steel, carefully ground to a point at each end, and then one end bent around a suitable piece of bar or tube, to form the curved end.

Making the monkey block could be an interesting and informative exercise, as an introduction to machining.

Howard

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Hmmm – A reluctance to dispose of the useless is most definitely a vice and not a virtue.

 

[Diogenes]

On Diogenes Said:

Hmmm – A reluctance to dispose of the useless is most definitely a vice and not a virtue.

 

But first decide whether the thing in question is useless.

Whether completely or to you both now and in the future.

Which can be tricky for neophytes who have neither the experience to appreciate what it does and how it can be exploited nor a functioning crystal ball to show what things they will be doing in their model engineering career so they only get what is needful.

The basic manual marking out kit is as effective as it ever was and relatively inexpensive compared to the more modern things most of the experienced folk have graduated to. Just slower. But it’s generally much easier to see whats going on with scriber and marking blue.

This old fart generally works direct off the part and drawings using the DRO system. Which takes money and experience to be good and confident. But I still sometimes mark out first when there is the possibility of confusion or the need to verify that what looks right on paper is right in the metal. My height gauges, one vernier, 2 APE ball type, are quicker but a surface gauge is just as good unless super accuracy is needed. Not to mention £££ cheaper.

The old fool also keeps his share of useless, no longer up to the job or worn beyond use stuff ready to be destroyed as the basis for at temporary tool. He still has the irredeemably awful, but pocket money cheap, mail order Foreign socket set gotten when he was 16. The sockets haven’t seen a functioning nut for 52 years or more. But when miracle removal of the remains of corroded, abused and jammed nut whose shape has been reduced to an indescribable shape by unskilled efforts hammering on one of the rubbish sockets frequently provides enough grip to shift. Most of the sockets still survive to fight another day. I’m impressed.

A knack for economical purchasing is important when building up equipment.

Even at today’s vastly lower, in real terms, prices for useable quality equipment from the import suppliers.

This old fart probably has in excess of a million pounds worth of kit if assessed at todays new-new like for like equivalent brand quality replacement prices. Assuming that such were possible.

Vastly over the top excessive by any normal ME or Home Workshop persons standards but he did expand things to take in commercial work as a post redundancy career move if the consultancy thing didn’t work out. Calculating a realistic assessment of the actual spend for tax purposes to value things on shutting down implied something over £250,000 spent over 30 or so years. Which was way more than I expected not having realised just how much my own personal kit, bought before the proper accounting needed by the business, was theoretically worth.

I guess every member of our community has enough money tied up in the workshop to get into serious trouble if answering honestly when the distaff side enquires “How much have you spent on your toybox?” in that voice.

The single lifestyle has its advantages!

Bottom line is good work can be done using a careful selection of “inexpensive ‘cos they are old fashioned” tooling and methods.

But modern technology gives the opportunity to grow out when you are ready without ruinous cost.

When Clive was young nobody could afford a DRO. They hadn’t been invented. Factories bought jig borers and all the kit. Which in the general run under open factory conditions  did very little better than a decent import DRO kit can manage in skilled hands.

Clive

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