123 Blocks - I'm underwhelmed, or ignorant

My first lathe was an Atlas 618. The perfect gauge for setting tool height was a 123 block on the ways.
 
darkzero said:
A common complaint with the China ones. Search online & you will see many discussions about this. Whoever copied them first made them wrong and they all followed. Pretty much all the ones from China (that I have seen) are made "wrong". Need to get some USA made ones if you want to bolt them together as intended or make your own.
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That is a problem with reverse engineering a part. Even well made parts have a tolerance associated with them. Unless you know the original design intent, you can end up in a bind. We see that problem creep up with R8 tooling. With the original design held private, all subsequent aftermarket tooling was either directly reverse engineered or copied from previously reverse engineered tooling. Add to that the mating sockets were also everse engineered or copied from previously reverse engineered sockets and you see the common problem of keyway interference.

FWIW, my blocks have untapped hole diameters ranging from .346" to .356". 9mm seem like the specified size. One way that the blocks can be connected together is to use a stud with a short 3/8-16 thread on one end and a 5/16"-18 thread on the other. Two or three each of 2", 3", and 4" lengths and a handful of nuts and you're in business.
 
I saw a Suburban Tool video on this subject.
Don Bailey said the same thing, the import 123 blocks don't work as designed, you can't bolt them together as blocks.
He showed the difference between the cheap imports and his products.
Night and day.
Yeah, I use them as parallels or spacers so far, but I'm hoping someday.....
 
Janderso said:
I saw a Suburban Tool video on this subject.
Don Bailey said the same thing, the import 123 blocks don't work as designed, you can't bolt them together as blocks.
He showed the difference between the cheap imports and his products.
Night and day.
Yeah, I use them as parallels or spacers so far, but I'm hoping someday.....
Click to expand...

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
 
For those who made their blocks, how did you Harden them? Did you use a surface grinder to polish them first? If your going to thread the holes, would you thread all the holes?
 
I use mine all the time to clock the lathe's tool-post perfectly parallel to the face of the chuck.
 
Oh and I've used them for work stops too by clamping them down on the mill table then butting up stock metal against them before clamping it down. Especially handy for CNC where you run the op, then remove the part and load stock without having to find the x0,y0 again and again.
 
I use them as big parrallels. I use them against my chuck to set a parting tool, I use them on my flat ways to check level on lathe. I use them under V blocks to check runout on things with diameter too big for v blocks alone.
 
WDG said:
For those who made their blocks, how did you Harden them
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I did not thread them, I machine them to rough shape, heated them with an acetylene/oxygen torch, dropped them into a bucket of oil. subsequent to this I soaked them overnight in a Seal-Peal pot to anneal them. Then I ground them all three at once on a 1 1/2 Abrasive surface grinder. Hand cranked.

Hardening, I made a little oven out of firebricks.
 
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