Thread: Cold fingers & a Wixey gauge

Hi Guys,

As you will know it's winter up here and it's very cold at the moment, particularly in the unheated workshop. When I came to use my Wixey level, I found that the battery was flat and the gauge didn't work. No problem, I've got spare batteries. Well with my cold fingers I couldn't twist the cover off the battery compartment.

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This is the gauge in question, and the view of the back with the battery cover in place. There are two small dimples molded in the cover. Probably for factory use in placing it by machine. Seeing these gave me the idea to make a key that I could use to get the back off and on easily. You can see where I have drilled two holes, each 3.2 mm in diameter. I only choose 3.2 mm because I have some steel dowel pins 3 mm in diameter and I needed a small amount of clearance to get the cover on and off the key easily. I happened to have a brass flanged nut laying about that was almost exactly the same diameter as the battery cover, so I turned it down to the same size. Then to take the sharp corners off I turned it around in the lathe chuck and skimmed the nut corners down a little.

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I then drilled the flange of the nut using the mill to get the hole positions right. Before pressing in the pins I matched the battery cover with the flange and drilled through one hole, then pressed one pin into the brass nut so I could locate the cover before drilling the second hole. I then pressed in the second pin. Since the pins now locked the battery cover onto the brass nut, I opened the holes in the battery cover out to 3.2 mm by twisting the 3.2 mm drill with my fingers.

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These two pictures show the battery cover located on the key. My key fits perfectly and enables me to remove and refit the battery cover with ease. As a bonus the key is stored, held by the magnets in the bottom of the Wixey gauge so it doesn't get lost, or disappear when the gremlins visit.