Surface Plates and Height Gages

What C-Bag said. The Starrett Master Vernier height gages are available new at Amazon for about $2,000. On eBay, they can be had in excellent condition for about $100. The action on them is incredibly smooth. The bar is about 14" of hardened, ground, and highly polished tool steel. Note that it's a 12" capacity since the extra length is needed for the vernier.

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If you're considering buying a surface plate on eBay or from an online vendor be sure to get the shipping cost up front. Shars has a Grade A 18" x 24" grade A plate for $118.00. When I tried to get s price for shipping to Florida it said to call and speak to a representative. That probably means the shipping cost will be substantial.

www.shars.com

Grade A 18" x 24" Black Granite Surface Plate

www.shars.com www.shars.com

I would continue to look locally and put out searches on eBay and Craigslist. Often times shops are selling larger plates for good prices simply because very few people are willing to pay the shipping cost. I was able to pick up a Challenge 24" x 36" hand scrapped plate cast iron a couple years ago for $100.00. Several out of town shops were interested, but the cost of shipping was prohibitive. The weight of the plate I purchased is 475 lbs., plus another 150 lbs. for the table and lifting bars.

When checking eBay be sure to do an advanced search on sold items. Quite often the asking price doesn't reflect the actual selling price. When I bought my Challenge plate there were several similar size ones that had an asking price of over $1,000.00, but an actual selling price in the $100.00 to $300.00 range.
 
Surface plates like so many things run in streaks. There have been huge plates on stands for $3-400. It's like the huge old manual machines their size ends up being a liability. When looking at surface grinder the guy was wanting to sell a huge Starrett pink granite plate with stand for $800. I knew he wanted less but I had no room for a monster like that, which I did.

I usually am keeping ongoing searches for several things at once and was keeping an eye out for 18x24 granite plate and caught a small shop going out of biz and picked up the 18x24 with OEM stand for $65 and had even been inspected not 3mo. before. Deals are out there just gotta be patient.

Also the really cool thing about the Starrett master bar is the quick release for quick adjust and the big knob in the base for fine height adjust. Way cool.
 
I have no idea how to operate a master height gage. Looking into it. It seems to be a tool which is not useful except for calibrating other gages.
 
Chips O'Toole said:
I have no idea how to operate a master height gage. Looking into it. It seems to be a tool which is not useful except for calibrating other gages.
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A surface plate without a good height gage is like having a lathe without tooling IMHO. Yeah,you can set the height of other gages like a surface gage accurately. But you can do what a surface gage does directly, without the surface gage. I use mine whenever I'm going to do any critical measurements on the plate. I find it far more stable for mounting GAGES or probes on than the surface gage. I got my height gage before I got my first surface gage and actually before I got my 18x24 plate when all I had was the 9x12.
 
It appears that height gages are generally sold without scribers or any way to attach them.
 
Yup, that's why they sit there forever. These dealers part everything out separately. Even sell the boxes separate and ask almost as much for box as the gage! How stupid is that. And yeah, a height gage without scribes etc are worthless. It took me a couple of months to find mine. It had to be in good shape have a lot of snugs, scribes etc and not outrageous shipping. Mine didn't have a box but my SO made a nice cover for it no problem. BTW you never have enough snugs as they are all different and no matter how many you have you'll get stumped. This is what I got with mine.
 

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I picked up a 12x18 Starrett Crystal Pink surface plate at the cabin fever expo last year. I got it for $50 and the best part was I didn’t have to pay any shipping! It was a bit grungy but it cleaned up really nice with kitchen granite cleaner. I also got a nice scriber for it. I don’t have a height gage yet but something in the 12” to 15” would be good for my shop’s capabilities.
 

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It appears that I put an offer in on a Scherr-Tumico with a bunch of stuff included. I must have forgotten. Anyway, it's mine now. Time to think about a surface gage. SUGGESTIONS?
 
Incidentally, Amazon is selling a Grade A 18" by 12" Chinese surface plate for $171.50 with free shipping.
 
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