Vernier Bevel Protractor Documentation?

You know, I was fairly confident that I would get some answers here. I love this place.

I took the protractor out of its plastic wrap yesterday and wiped some of the oil off. It appears to function and seems to be made decently. The adjustments all work. Sometime during the week I will clean and debur it, though I don't think it's that bad. I do think that deburring it will make it function more smoothly and make it feel better. Then I will check it using angle blocks.

It will be a couple of days before I do that though. It's cold and very damp here (it's snowing up in New Hampshire). Besides, it's Mothers Day. I'm going to spend a good part of the day cooking. This morning our big breakfast will be eggs, grits, and ham hash. Then for Sunday dinner I'll make shrimp and garbonzos (chick peas) with arugula, per my wife's request.

By the way, if any of you guys forgot to get a gift I have a suggestion if you have a Lowes nearby. When I was there the other day I got some hanging flower baskets for the wife. Normally $11 - $12 each, they were on sale 2 for $10. So it makes $20 look like $50. She's happy and I'm happy.
 
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Vernier scale, 1 Degree, 10 Minutes

Or 91 Deg, 10 minutes

Or 181 Deg., 10 minutes

Or 271 Deg., 10 minutes

The Logo looks like Helios, I have a similar tool.

Do a search for Helios and you may find what you seek, however it is quite a simple tool to use, if you can read a vernier caliper, it is just degrees and minutes as opposed to inches and thousands of an inch.
 
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I've had one of this type of protractor for years now. If I need semi-precision angles measured this is what I reach for. I prefer it to the other protractors I have. Mine is also made in a former Soviet county, or at least it appears that way from the Cyrillic lettering on it. A friend turned me on to them. I like it better than my starrett 359 protractor because of the ledges, it makes some measurements easier.

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Well, this afternoon I finally got around to cleaning and deburring this thing. With the old oil removed it was a little rougher than I originally thought. Still not too bad though.

I disassembled it, made sure it was clean and dry, and removed all the burrs with emery cloth. Just about every edge required this. Next I buffed up the edges with handheld steel wool. Then I did something I usually do when fitting parts together. I put a light coat of oil on and ran each adjustment 100 times. That includes the adjustment screw holes and the rack and pinion gear for the vernier scale. As I expected it started out rather rough and stiff. But as I ran each one I could feel them smoothing out nicely.

So I reassembled it and the whole thing now functions nice and smoothly. The knurled knob on the triangle in the center advances the vernier pinion on the curved rack on the back. I used it on the 10°, 20°, and 25° angle blocks from my set. They all measured within 1' of their nominal size. I also measured some random pieces I had around.

rack.jpg

The only ways I had to check the accuracy of the measurement was to use a regular protractor or compare them to angle blocks. They matched up but of course the check was not as accurate as the protractor. I suppose I could have used a sine bar on the surface plate, but that really was a bit more work than I was ready for at that point. I was fairly satisfied that it was accurate.

Bottom line: It was a little work to clean it up, but it seems like a pretty good way to quickly and accurately set or check angles. For $26.99 it was easily worth the price.
 
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I haven't spent a lot of time comparing the Chinese version with the original Czech model, but on first blush the Chinese protractor is much rougher. I noticed that the locking element for the protractor is just a straight sided triangle whereas the Czech model has the side that locks the scale curved and beveled to match the curves in the scale. There are a few other small things that I will correct but for the money I think it is fine and will provide suitable accuracy for most projects.

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