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Bitchin dial indicator

NorCal_Chris

NorCal_Chris

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Stopped by parents house today to help move some stuff in the backyard. Was asking my Dad if he had a dial indicator since i needed to check the backlash on my rear end when i swap carriers. He said sure, you can have this one.


This thing is pretty old i think. Its got this sweet movable shaft that when you push the lever down it locks it tight.

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That's what I use at work and they're invaluable. We go through the indicators themselves (it's a shame but it's cheaper to buy a new Starrett indicator than have it repaired) often but the magnetic movable bases just keep on tickin'.
 
we use those for checking shaft straightness on boats... the flex shaft works well adapting to different struts on different boats....
 
ryoken said:
we use those for checking shaft straightness on boats... the flex shaft works well adapting to different struts on different boats....
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I couldnt help but notice and chuckle that the way you worded this if you take your post and replace the word boats with dudes suddenly your profession may sound questionable


:haha:
 
Had one for over 20 years now. Used it dozens of times in a day machining. I have a mini one as well I like to use for bending tube on my tube bender. I have always wanted to machine my own spacers and swivel balls that make up the flex part of it out of stainless and get a great finish and polish the stainless to a near mirror finish. It would be sooooooooo smooth to use.

The bought ones are decent but the spacers and swivel balls don't have a great finish and being made of steel they cal and will rust up. I just looked at mine a day or two ago and it's got a light layer of rust on it. Easy to clean off and lube but if it was stainless steel of course it would never rust, and being polished SS would look bad ass. Someday I'll get around to it. I'll post up pics of some of the tooling and machine shop tools I have. I have a crap load of stuff I've collected over my entire machining career.
 
Hey Rob, if you made them out of a stainless steel that wouldn't rust then it wouldn't work since it would no longer be magnetic depending on the type of stainless used.
 
82355 said:
The flexible shaft isn't magnetic, just the base.

Martin
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Really? I always thought the shaft was magnetic as well and that when you turned the base magnet on it "locked" the shaft in place where ever you had it placed. Guess that's what I get for assuming. :doah:
 
it has round ball type joints, and when you tighten it up, it takes the slack out and makes the joints stay in position.. my base is a magnet encased in plastic with the metal shaft... iirc, it's an ATD.. blue case.. i've had it so long i forget the manny... :doah: :haha:
 
4X4HIGH said:
Really? I always thought the shaft was magnetic as well and that when you turned the base magnet on it "locked" the shaft in place where ever you had it placed. Guess that's what I get for assuming. :doah:
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Yep, the mag only turns the base on. The flexxy part tightens up when you tighten a lever at the end of it. It cams and tightens the cable rinning through the centr of the flexy parts where it's afixed to the mag base.
 
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rdn2blazer said:
Yep, the mag on only turns the base on. The flexxy part tightens up when you tighten a lever at the end of it. It cams and tightens the cable rinning through the centr of the flexy parts where it's afixed to the mag base.
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Guess i've never looked at on long enough to understand how they worked. At some point in the future I guess i'll go buy one as it could could in handy working on my brathe lathe when I need to check runout on a rotor more precisely. I currently have a different style dial indicator I use and it's most of the time hard to get set-up just right with the given adapters in place being that it's a fixed shaft style.
 
The old saying still stands, Ya learn something new every day Scott :thumb:. Only problem I have even had with these is that unless you get them good and fairly tight when locking the flex shaft in place is they can and will drift on you. Just a few thousands but still, they will drift. You have to let them sit for a second to settle in so to speak, then set zero and get'r done from there. I've never liked the regular solid shaft indicator mag bases. There is less variable adjustment as compared to the flex shafts. I think I have two of those but I never use them.
 
rdn2blazer said:
The old saying still stands, Ya learn something new every day Scott :thumb:. Only problem I have even had with these is that unless you get them good and fairly tight when locking the flex shaft in place is they can and will drift on you. Just a few thousands but still, they will drift. You have to let them sit for a second to settle in so to speak, then set zero and get'r done from there. I've never liked the regular solid shaft indicator mag bases. There is less variable adjustment as compared to the flex shafts. I think I have two of those but I never use them.
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This little bit of drift is what i think would get worse if you polished all hte parts.

THe little bit of friction between all the ball links is all that keeps it solid when you lock it down . Remove that friction, or reduce it, and your really good looking tool won't work anymore.
 
dhcomp said:
This little bit of drift is what i think would get worse if you polished all hte parts.

THe little bit of friction between all the ball links is all that keeps it solid when you lock it down . Remove that friction, or reduce it, and your really good looking tool won't work anymore.
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Yeah, I have though about that and thought that may be an issue. Probably why I never have took the time to cnc machine them up when I had the chance. I just hate how they can get notchey at time when your trying to use them. You end us having to loosen the lock, wiggle the flex shaft all over till it frees up, then go back to setting up.

It only takes a second but time is money and it's irritating. I've had it happen to me a hundred times where the balls get stuck or wedged in if you want to call it that, in the adjacent cylinders, to where I've had to tap the ball with a screw driver handle or something to unstick it so it's free again and will swivel. Like I said irritating during a critical setup.
 
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