inverted v templates

Thanks Bob great info. Are the new imports worth a look or should I stick with top brands? This is a tool I'd like to do once if possible. BTW you were right about MSC being close. If I can get this narrowed down I can probably just go get the thing this week. Only a 35 minute drive from my house. Of course on the other hand If I can find a core as you put it. Several of the certification companies come to Reno by scheduled dates from what I see on various sites. Then again might be throwing money down a hole if my core is too far out.

Another part of my study. I bought that DVD set on Ebay for scraping. Part way through it now. I do like how the guy presents fixing squareness issues. Also showing the way measurements are taken for that and parallelism on a Bridgeport mill he is scraping in as demonstration. I'm sure you guys know which one I'm talking about.
 
Thanks Bob great info. Are the new imports worth a look or should I stick with top brands? This is a tool I'd like to do once if possible. BTW you were right about MSC being close. If I can get this narrowed down I can probably just go get the thing this week. Only a 35 minute drive from my house. Of course on the other hand If I can find a core as you put it. Several of the certification companies come to Reno by scheduled dates from what I see on various sites. Then again might be throwing money down a hole if my core is too far out.

Another part of my study. I bought that DVD set on Ebay for scraping. Part way through it now. I do like how the guy presents fixing squareness issues. Also showing the way measurements are taken for that and parallelism on a Bridgeport mill he is scraping in as demonstration. I'm sure you guys know which one I'm talking about.
Brands are not important at all. Current certification to traceable US standards by people I can trust is imperative. The guys who came and calibrated our plates, and who do dozens of plates every day, said the Chinese imports are often very good, but also sometimes WAY off. That is caused by inadequate or totally lacking quality control. Again, there is no way of knowing for sure without the special equipment and the skills to use them reliably. I want my reference surfaces, flat, length, and squareness, to be known quantities, not question marks. They are the basis of accuracy, upon which everything else is compared to, the ultimate arbitrators of my modest shop. Anything else is a wild ass guess, my guesses are within known tolerances. It seems silly to me to have a bunch of high resolution tools and tooling, none of which can be trusted because it is all being used with hope that it might be correct. If your two micrometers are giving different readings, how do you know which one is correct? It may or may not be the one in the red box...
 
Brands are not important at all. Current certification to traceable US standards by people I can trust is imperative. The guys who came and calibrated our plates, and who do dozens of plates every day, said the Chinese imports are often very good, but also sometimes WAY off. That is caused by inadequate or totally lacking quality control. Again, there is no way of knowing for sure without the special equipment and the skills to use them reliably. I want my reference surfaces, flat, length, and squareness, to be known quantities, not question marks. They are the basis of accuracy, upon which everything else is compared to, the ultimate arbitrators of my modest shop. Anything else is a wild ass guess, my guesses are within known tolerances. It seems silly to me to have a bunch of high resolution tools and tooling, none of which can be trusted because it is all being used with hope that it might be correct. If your two micrometers are giving different readings, how do you know which one is correct? It may or may not be the one in the red box...

So Traceable brands do matter. After reading that I'm pretty much at a loss unless I buy a new NIST certified plate straight from the manufacturer. Me buying a known core for $50 and being in a place where I can get it certified in the next year is highly unlikely. MSC plates are not traceable unless you buy Starrett from them. If I buy used I could be getting a stone that is just that a rock that can't be re-certified due to excessive wear. So really the simple answer is don't buy import it's a crap shoot. Buy a major brand or forget being able to count on it at all.
 
Front way.jpg Mic.jpg Back way.jpg 32667-09c88d14267cbcea591f0da2f2ad571c.jpg 75630-efec5ae9321b3fe559a7a66eee2b2a81.jpg 75631-ef84b26d41ece5d0c616f6251db2d1b5.jpg 75632-0277c3b27befdadc4f63d32b60292b3f.jpg I used a King way alignment tool that I made from a cast Iron bar and turned on a lathe and milled. I made 2 different sizes, one for the compound and for the crossfeed, a second one for the bed. Here are a few pics of measuring. My original bed was worn .008 and the new one is .0006. I also have a used 4'x6'x8" plate that Bebop checked and said that was a Grade B overall and was grade A on about half of it. Good enough to scrape a hobby lathe. I still have a lot do to on this lathe. I had to stop because of school and work. Now that school is over, I can get back to some of my hobby. Tim Front way.jpg Mic.jpg .
 
[QUOTE="astjp2, post: 492602, member: 26280"I used a King way alignment tool that I made from a cast Iron bar and turned on a lathe and milled. I made 2 different sizes, one for the compound and for the crossfeed, a second one for the bed. Here are a few pics of measuring. My original bed was worn .008 and the new one is .0006. I also have a used 4'x6'x8" plate that Bebop checked and said that was a Grade B overall and was grade A on about half of it. Good enough to scrape a hobby lathe. I still have a lot do to on this lathe. I had to stop because of school and work. Now that school is over, I can get back to some of my hobby. Tim .[/QUOTE]

Great pictures! That's a tool I'd love to have. That plate is huge. Are you self taught on the scraping or have you taken the class?
 
The only real problem I have with the Kingway alignment checking tool is with the way it is used. Almost everyone uses the tailstock ways to run the alignment tool on. How do you know the tailstock ways are not worn, too?
Did you run the indicator against a unworn area of the bed, like between the ways, to determine if there was any wear on the tailstock ways?

BTW- Nice job on the saddle scraping and cross slide, too.
 
There are 2 inverted v's and 2 flats, the saddle only runs on one inverted V, the front one, the back one is only used to mount the tail stock and steady rest, so I used those as my "true surface" to measure from after I measured the bed using about 8 different methods, you can also stick out the .0005 indicator towards the head several inches and see the drop on the original bed if you only have one inverted V, the second bed required a .0001 indicator. The bed on the back side was actually worn below the flat surface on the bottom side several thou' you can measure this with the mic in conjunction with the indicator on top. The indicator validates the drop in the bed if the saddle has worn the top, which it typically will not happen because the cutter causes the back of the saddle to rise from what I have measured.

I paid $300 for the slab and the table was given to me, I had to weld some supports for the 3 mounting pads, and make it have adjustable feet. I used cannode blue and yellow to scrape in, the blue by itself works but the yellow highlights where I need to scrape. I have a lot more scraping to do, I need to make a carbide end that is thin enough to get into the dovetails. Bebop gave me some pointers over at my shop a couple of times, I will need to seek his help again when I get back into it in a few months after my second job winds down. Making the tooling is not hard, you just need to find a few precision rods, snugs which I got from McMaster Carr, and Carr Lane carries the precision ball that I mounted. I also have a carbide endmill insert that is round that I use as a slide, its hard surface that runs across and does not want to dig into the surface you are measuring. here is the link to my plate build. http://www.hobbymachinist.org/threads/surface-plate-info.19585/27667-3b7fbe358e10877b01f67627c570f0e8.jpg 27668-54d8fc809d3aca01afd72bf3ecc918e8.jpg
 
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So Traceable brands do matter. After reading that I'm pretty much at a loss unless I buy a new NIST certified plate straight from the manufacturer. Me buying a known core for $50 and being in a place where I can get it certified in the next year is highly unlikely. MSC plates are not traceable unless you buy Starrett from them. If I buy used I could be getting a stone that is just that a rock that can't be re-certified due to excessive wear. So really the simple answer is don't buy import it's a crap shoot. Buy a major brand or forget being able to count on it at all.
It is not the brands that matter. It is that the calibration tools are calibrated to NIST, and the techs know and care what the hell they are doing. Standridge Granite goes on a road trip which includes going to Reno from their home in Southern California several times each year. They would be happy to stop by and calibrate and certify your plate for you. BUT, there is a mileage charge and a minimum invoice charge, which will make it prohibitively high priced all said and done. We had Standridge come by my shop and cert. 5 plates from 4 owners. Together, we shared the mileage charge and had enough work to make the minimum invoice, so it was quite a bit cheaper that way. They can all be calibrated, regardless of wear, Standridge charges extra for over .001" out, but they let mine go for the regular price with .003" out. It only took them about 20 minutes to calibrate and certify it. Good company, friendly and helpful techs, love to talk while they work and answer questions, and deliver more than what they promise.

My point is that if you have to trust someone, use someone you can trust.
 
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