Thread: Forced Air LPG Burner Mk2

Well, here's the finished dial gauge height measurement stand. (I trust I'm not infringing on somebody's patent by making this! )

The dial gage can be swivelled around to measure part thicknessess directly on the grinder chuck. This particular dial gauge has a resolution of 0.005mm.






The base is the cast iron part referred to earlier in this thread, the vertical post is a bit of scrap 1" shafting, the meter clamp is milled from 2 pieces of brass sandwiched together.

The paint is a hammertone green spray can, originally it was going to be wrinkle black.

The clamp mechanism doesn't work very well, and is fiddly to adjust, so I'm going to change to a better clamping mechanism, just a soon as I figure out how..

Regards
Ray

Ray,
Looking great.
How about a second collar below the one you have with a threaded ring that can raise and lower the bracket you have say 5mm? Get what I mean?

Oh and behave lol

Stuart

Nice work Ray, looks like a factory made one.
Stuarts idea for a fine adjuster sounds a good idea, even a small plate on top with a threaded thumb wheel going down to the sliding block.
Another thing CTC sells cheap (around $45) is a 0.001 digital indicator. Going by there digital micrometers the quality would be good.

Dave

Forgot to add, you had painted it.

Dave

Is there a reason for having the bracket that way up?

Stuart

It looks like it would come close to bottoming out the other way and would leave less room for the job.

Dave

Hi Stuart,

The bracket is reversible, I guess, this dial gauge has 1" travel , so it will reach down to the chuck when you swing it around to the other side. The bottom of the bracket is flat.
Having it this way around gets the meter as low as it can.

The procedure is to zero it, with the dial gauge adjusted down touching the chuck. (or surface plate, if I can ever find one)

Hi Dave,
Thanks for that, I ordered that 0.001 dial gauge already, the travel on that CTC one is 1/2" so I'll have to wait to see how it goes when it arrives.

I think I can make a locking mechanism, similar to the quill lock on the mill, with a small lever. I like the thumbwheel adjustment idea, I'll see what can be done.

Originally Posted by Dave

Forgot to add, you had painted it.

And, as far as I can tell no one painted it before either..

Regards
Ray

Edit: Dave beat me to it.. but maybe if you wanted to measure something higher you could flip the bracket the other way up.

I forgot you said you would be reading over the side.
Stuart

wow...great work Ray...from molten material to a piece of art

Thanks Eskimo,
Rusty brake drums to rusty tools..



There's that little locking lever on the side...

This is how I imagined using it, for checking setup's on the magnetic chuck, I'm not sure how it will go for checking grinding progress, I would have to demag put the gauge on and then magnetize to hold it in place, and then demag to get it off, and magnetize again to hold the work... all of which is going to disturb the work and ruin the accuracy.. not to mention carefully cleaning the coolant and grinding dust..

I think it's back to square one, maybe this time I'll think it through a bit better...

UPDATE: It works just fine, the residual magnetism in the work holds it in place just fine, I just turn the magnet off, don't demagnetize and just do the measurement with the magnet switched off. The work stays put nicely.. I must learn to stop imagining problems that don't exist. (Thanks to Josh for pointing that out!)

Still makes a nice thickness gauge, even if it's not going to work as I intended..

Edit: I wonder how it would go if I made it from stainless (which is non-magnetic)?

Regards
Ray

PS.. that bit of steel, looks like it might do the job nicely for a diamond tool holder..

lol I missed your edit Ray, I was just going to suggest a heat treated Alum base filled with lead. Needn't have worried.

Stuart