123 Blocks - I'm underwhelmed, or ignorant

[pstemari]

... The non-tapped holes in the B&S set are 0.376, in the Chinese set are 0.357. The threaded holes in both are 3/8-16.

Obviously the Chinese set is not made correctly, and the B&S set will bolt together as they should. Another example of cheap import tooling following the form but not the function.

Alas, B&S's current offerings have the same problem that the Chinese ones do. I have a pair of US-made Suburban blocks that do have the correct hole sizes. If you check around on eBay you can also find a lot of machinist-made 123 blocks that are quite good, and have various hole configurations. TNGtool and MachinistBox are two sellers in particular that have some excellent stuff.

Note also that there's nothing magic about the 1-2-3 size. I have four very nice blocks with one hole each that are .5x1x1.5, and those are a great size for my Taig mill.

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[srfallsallot]

I think this basically sums it up. As built, they can't be bolted together as intended, you have to use smaller bolts and will have protruding heads etc.
It also sucks that because they are hardened, enlarging the non-threaded holes would be a *****.

I already saw the Renzetti video / concept - this looks like a great way to make them.

The bolts from my clamp/step block kit do have reduced shafts, so once you thread them through they spin freely. However, it doesn't really help much as they are threaded on both ends and you still have to add nuts and can only use the 5 threaded holes in the blocks. Better off just buying smaller dia bolts and ignoring the pre-threaded holes.

I'll try to check out the Suburban Tool video.

Thanks for all the input everyone!

-Dave B

Is there a tool that will cut/enlarge the undersized holes?

 

[Janderso]

This is Don Bailey's opinion on the import blocks.
Worth a watch it's only a few minutes long.

 

[Toolmaker51]

There is a wide range of posts; all target same issues, with different perspectives, as it should be. But the best appraisal might be this.

As a kid I played with Erector Sets, Building Blocks what ever we could find. Today I am doing the same thing with the vertical mills, horizontal mill, surface grinders, drill press, arbor press and all the FURNITURE that I use.
123 Blocks, parallels, round precision pins, angle blocks, planer gauges, jack screws and the list goes on.
123 blocks can be bolted together to make small angle plate, clamped in a vise for locators, clamped to an angle plate for repetitive angle set setups.
The use of my FURNITURE is only limited by my imagination and being able to just make it work for me and to produce QUALITY work.!

1-2-3's and bigger brother 2-4-6's [ and equivalent metric's] can't really do much on their own, compared to 'specialized' tools, but they combine qualities our other tooling does not.
Being able to assemble them can be solved in a variety of ways, fun bit of work, questionable utility depending on your resources.
As we say,YMMV, IYKWIM.

 

[Janderso]

Is there a tool that will cut/enlarge the undersized holes?

I bet you could cut them with a carbide end mill.
Unless they are Suburban/Schmidt or Moore.
They should be hardened but I bet they aren't too bad.
Just an opinion.

 

[ErichKeane]

I actually tried to use my HFS set to tram in my mill-head the other day, and discovered there is about 5-6 tenths of variation on them! The area around the holes is higher, the rest is a little lower. I'm not sure how they managed that. I was having an incredibly frustrating time trying to tram in the head as a result!

Between that and the holes, I don't actually use mine at all except as junky parallels. If I had a good hardening setup, I'd pick up some nice steel and just make my own.