Magnetic base types - Noga articulating style vs double steel cylindrical

M

maple syrup

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I'm looking to buy my new first magnetic base. When looking online, and notice that the Noga style seems to be the most popular it appears to me that it can be tightened that one spot rather than two, good magnet, and right stiffness.

I am looking to buy something half decent but at a point where I'll be purchasing something as nice as the Noga.

I wanted to know if the older style double steel pole is just as easy to use,Or is that a regretful purchase provided it's a good brand-name or am I better off going with a cheap import Noga clone.

if I go with the noga clone, make something at least half decent?
 
My vote is go Noga. I used an old style double rod for decades. I just purchased my first Noga a few months ago. Never will I go back. The speed and ease of using is light years beyond any other type. When tightened it is rock solid.


Cutting oil is my blood.
 
The Noga bases seem expensive compared to the lookalikes but there is a difference. When you’re starting out it actually makes sense to buy the real thing since struggling to get a good reading is such a pain. I now have a genuine Noga with adjustment at the base and it’s much, much better.

Definitely a case of buy once cry once IMHO. I actually didn’t pay full price but now that I have it I definitely would.

John
 
Noga ALL. DAY. LONG.

The old school 2, 3, 4, x, x+1 bars are certainly usable, and even have their place in highly rigid and/or semi-permanent applications. So if you're really strapped but need something now, a decent bar set-up (basically whatever the best micro adjust you can find) will still be useful whenever you graduate to a Noga.

But absolutely nothing beats a Noga for general purpose indicating where you're rarely doing the same thing back to back.

But even if I was, in say a multi-op lathe + mill part where operations are fluid b/c of optimizing, I'd just buy another noga (hopefully in a different size/mounting method just for extra justification ).

They're that good. And if you're a good catalog jockey, you can buy the required fittings to use it on several bases.

My Noga baptism was as a ME co-op/intern with a bottomless budget at Imation. I was tasked with putting together an installation/maintenance kit for tape reel chucks on servo writing machines that were built on 3'x4' precision machined aluminum slabs, so no mag bases.

Use-enco/McMaster/whoever's catalog 100% sold me on a vacuum based Noga & that thing made me a damn rockstar! Everybody from maintenance to engineering to the tool & die shop loved it & thought it was the slickest thing since sliced bread!

As you can see, I personally think going name brand on this one is worth it, and I'd definitely pay for the micro adjust head as well (edit: or base. Which is nice b/c you're never touching & flexing a long cantilevered arm. But I've always ended up with heads for some reason). Just think about it. I love a good Harbor Freight deal as much as the next guy, but you're hanging ~$150-$300 thousandth's dials & tenth's test indicators on this thing.

So fit & finish, reliability, and ease of use are paramount & I've seen (and honestly, been a party to) plenty of shoddy indicator set-ups that were a direct result of a "I'm done screwing with this aggravating POS & this is good enough" line of thought. And it was rarely actually good enough.

A Noga is just about the only other thing to match up to a Spaceball (3dconnexion 3d/space mouse) as far as stuff where if I have any say whatsoever, I'm NOT going w/o. Which, coming from someone that spends a very significant amount of time in CAD, is REALLY saying something. I've had employers refuse to pay for both, and each time I've not lasted a week w/o just buying one myself & starting a revolution.

Anyway. I'm rambling.

You know my answer.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
 
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To paraphrase John Belushi in Animal House, Noga! Noga! Noga!

I bought my first Noga articulating arm probably 10 years ago and haven’t use the other style since.
 
Pretty much the same answer as everyone else, just bite the bullet and get the noga. You will use it for the rest of your machining career and give it to a kid when you finally call it quits.

That said, a good high quality double bar works just as well as a noga and isn't going to much and if any difference on the mount of time to setup or on where you can use it. Most of us just aren't doing the quantity of work at speeds where a small difference in time is going to matter at all.

The number one take away is don't buy a cheap stand of any type. The clamping handles crack and break / fail in some manner after a year or two of use.

I have three stands:

A cheap double bar that stays in a drawer unless I really need a third one (never) or I guess if I had to set one up in some nasty place where it might get trashed (again unlikely as I'm not going to want to use an indicator there). The tightening is cracked and only mostly works (I may rebuild it at some point).

A quality double bar (Sarrett I think) it stays with my surface plate. works just fine.

And a noga that gets used all the time on my mill and lathe.

I haven't compared prices between a quality double bar vs. a similar sized noga I doubt the difference is more than 50% more but even if it's double I'd go with the noga as a first, unless you are on a really tight budget. If you cheap out on any kind of stand, you will be buying another one in a few years.
 
With one outlier…

I have a Noga base but not the articulating one, mine is a double bar. This is not to be confused with the standard import versions, those are not pleasant to use. I find this one exceptionally sturdy yet silky smooth to adjust. As I recall our dear departed friend mikey once commented he felt this type was even stiffer than the Noga articulating style but I can’t say that for sure as I only have the one. At any rate, I’m very pleased with it and it gets to where I need it to go.

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I replaced the cheap double-bar with a cheap Noga imitator. I now use the double-bar as a holder for a motorcycle faceplate that acts as a good chip guard. The cheap noga is a different universe when it comes to irritation free setups, but they are made in different sizes. You won't be sad with several of different sizes.
 
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