It was a cold one yesterday - in the teens when I finally rolled out of the sack. It was quite pretty though with everything covered in a layer of frost, sparkling in the sunshine. I still decided to take another day off from working on anything in the shop just the same. I did manage to get a little more done on the family history project. Every time I get any new info on people and I add it to my family tree on Ancestry.com more hints pop up, so then I chase those down. Sometimes there will be something useful, sometimes not but at least until I hear back from the last few people I've contacted, I'll keep pursuing new leads.
In addition to family history research, I came across this item in an email from Grizzly: English wheel for less than $100.00. It's a small benchtop model but might be OK for motorcycle work. If I was thinking about getting into doing some metal shaping work, might be worth picking one up. If you decide that type of work is not for you, I'm sure you could recoup your investment easily enough.
I bought myself another caliper - as an aside, like most people, I say a pair of calipers like they do with binoculars. Not sure why that is, they don't come in pairs. Anyway, these read in fractions of an inch on the outside of the dial. I figure they'll be handy for measuring stock and quick measurements that don't require a real accuracy. They read to .001" on the inner dial, however, so you can use them for more precise measurements. Less than $30.00, so a small investment for something that should be somewhat handy.
I lost the screw somehow on my 6" Vernier calipers that I normally use for my machine work that locks the sliding jaw down in position. I also have a 6" digital set that I haven't used for years. The battery went bad in those a long time ago but I pulled them out before ordering the new one and saw some corrosion where the battery goes even though I pulled the battery out way back. I assume they would still work if I cleaned them up but I think they might have the same size screw I need for my Vernier calipers. If so, I'll swap out the screw and scrap the digital ones. I'm not big on things that require batteries.
2 comments:
Just a quick note: I use a fractional digital caliper, almost the same as the Pittsburgh brand Harbor Freight sells. All the digital units I've come across use an LR44 watch battery. H-F sells a variety pack of watch batteries that includes 4 LR44s, and it can be bought most times for around $2.
Yeah it's hard to keep a battery in those - I usually pull them out before putting them back in the tool chest (if I remember). Temp extremes in the shop, and sometimes jarring them turns them on and kills the battery. Interestingly, my analog dial caliper has never gone dead. :-)
Rich
I'm willing to invest $2.00 to see if mine still functions but that won't solve the problem of the missing screw from my Vernier caliper. I've got a dial caliper in my basement shop I rarely use. I should just bring it out to the shop. Much easier to read than the Vernier anyway. If the digital works with a new battery put it down the basement and then try to keep an eye on it so the battery doesn't go bad and corrode it and throw the Vernier in the machinist box as a backup.
I saw your other comment - getting things sorted is always good. Apparently it's extremely difficult to go after the Chinese for patent infringement so they just reverse engineer an American item and then proceed to sell it at a lower cost. The quality of the items seems to be getting better making it real hard to compete against what is essentially your own product.
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