Tools and Surface Plate Questions

My post was directed to all those reading this thread who might be considering purchasing a surface plate, Moderatedmixed, not directed toward you personally or your posts here at all. I have seen many here and elsewhere who seem to have incorrect (in my mind) ideas about purchasing used surface plates. When buying one used, we have no idea how it might have been used or cared for. That was (and is) my message. I am just another hobby machinist who cares to understand what I think I know, what I don't know, and how it affects my results. I do the best I can with what I have, as do we all. Much of the work in my shop is pretty crude.

Hey Bob, no disrespect intended. I thought I had made that clear. You are far more advanced than most and see things from a different perspective. That’s what makes these forums great; collaboration. In my line of work we call it “Crew Resource Management” or CRM for short. I was just clarifying my points as they were more from a Kindergarten perspective than yourself at the College level, figuratively speaking. Regards all.


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Tom Lipton recommended getting a small plate cheap from Shars and doing all the abrasive work on it, saving your bigger, more accurate plate for precision work. I think my 9x12 Shars cost $35 with shipping at $45, or thereabouts. It’s reserved for abrasive and small non-critical work.

Agree with Bob that used stones, unless recently calibrated and certified, are a bit of a crapshoot. I think the point was to not pay too much for used unless you can verify it’s flat. Get it cheap enough and you can afford to have it calibrated if you decide you need to.
 
It's not mentioned descriptively, but used surface plates abound. In more accurate environments they are resurfaced on a regular basis. I've never seen a used plate for sale that was hopeless, depending on next owners commitment.
Check with a local machine shop that gets their plate re-certs on a predictable schedule; have your plate there to save a service call charge. Reimburse them or arrange with the plate inspector and pay him direct. Done this many times over the years; they pocket a little cash for themselves. Your 12 or 18 x won't take them an hour.
When you run across a plate deal use a good straight edge, a bright flash light and feeler gauges. Check across corners and a grid divided by thirds or so. Put equal shims under ends of straight edge and start with feelers .001 or .0005 under size of those at end.
Buy it, use it and wait for an opportunity to have it checked. It will withstand your individual private use decades.
 
re Lee Valley, not bashing them because they offer some nice (woodworking) tools via their own Veritas line plus some other name brands. But they also have a increasing proliferation of Chinesium. Again, nothing wrong with that but I would suspect theirs isn't appreciably different than Busy Bee or similar vendors. For $54 (and that's deflated Canuck bucks) seems like decent value. Just not sure I would rely on all those decimal places LOL. I'm not even sure how Joe Hobbyist could verify it independently. One of the issues I'm noticing is shipping weight. There are some comparable offshore offerings through tool catalogs like KBC & Travers, but as they get larger footprint they also get thicker which means more weight. So sometimes what you are able to pick up locally counts for something too.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?cat=1,43513,51657&p=32526
 
I have both BB and a Lee Valley surface plates, and they seem ground to very acceptable precision. I needed a little larger for the work I do, hence the 18X24 Mitutoyo. Within my measuring instruments limits' I cannot tell the difference between any of them.
 
Found a 3 stack of 18x24 surface plates, including my 12x18 reconditioning cost for all will cost between $325 to $450, Average wear 0.0004", worst 0.0007" (might cost a bit more). Ace (Glendale) and Precision Granite (Santa Fe Springs) are local to me. Reconditioning a surface plate is not that bad if the purchase price is reasonable. Group reconditioning spreads the travel fee. Made a small version of the Rahn RoM, hard to interpret on long slope wear troughs.
 
Standridge (which is also named Precision) Granite of Santa Fe Springs can do work on surface plates in their factory workshop for pretty cheap, even if they are out by a few thousandths. On the road, where they lap by hand using diamond dust and cast iron surface plates to do the job, .002" is about the most they will do without incurring extra charges. Standridge will often do them while you wait. They also have some very good deals on surface plates, angle blocks, and other products that are "blems." Only problem for me is that it is more than 400 miles away...
 
Bob, think how far it is for me to go there!
 
I bought a 18x24 Grade B Import locally from a tool supply shop. At $90 and no shipping charges I couldn't complain. I haven't outgrown it using a 7x26 table size benchtop mill or a 12x36 lathe so far. I am not doing NASA level parts or super precision scraping so the Grade B import was acceptable. The grain size on mine is rather large and the finish isn't the same as some of the Starrett ones I've used but I'm happy with the purchase. Plus I can carry it by meself, definitely couldn't move the 24x24 without help.
 
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