Gage blocks on the cheap...

[Highpower]

I've been trying to put together an 'affordable' set of gage blocks for the home shop. My first score (or so I thought) was for an almost complete set of Starret/Webber rectangular steel blocks via ebay. But the joke was on me when I got the set and found 46 of the blocks were 'other' than Starrett.  

So after having to hound the seller for several days to actually send the partial refund they promised, I put that money toward another partial set on ebay (missing several blocks) that was well used and somewhat abused to try to fill in the gaps of the first set. Low and behold, this is what I received today courtesy of the USPS.

Ahhh the joys of dealing with ebay sellers. Packing material? What's that??? Ain't nobody got time for that!

I'm not going to let them break me though. I WILL get this done. (Famous last words.)  

   

[Mike E.]

Sorry to hear about that. I've been lucky on Ebay and haven't had a bad deal yet. Before I bid on anything I spend some time reviewing the sellers track record, and only bid if it feels a hundred percent right. I also usually ask the seller a question if its an expensive item to see what kind of response I get before I bid; everything has got to feel right or I pass.

[TomG]

That sucks Willie.

I saw a set of Weber blocks in of all places, an antique mall the other day. They wanted $175 for them but they looked to be in excellent condition.

Tom

[Highpower]

Unfortunately the nice looking used sets on ebay are priced accordingly. Still cheap compared to the cost of NEW but still more than I want to spend on a set for home use.

As it stands now I've purchased 3 partial sets with mixed or missing blocks and I think I can put together one complete matching set from them. I have one good storage case from the bunch that cleaned up nicely and now I need to start going through cleaning and inspecting (as best I can) each of the blocks, then picking out the best ones to make up my set.

In the end I think it will be worth it because I will have one nice clean set for reference which was all I was after. But now it looks like I will have a second 'working' set of mixed gages as well, plus a lot of extras left over.  

My total out of pocket (after the partial refunds from 2 sellers) is $280 for the 3 sets I bought. If my one good set turns out as nice as I think it will, I feel it would have been worth the effort. Not that I would want to repeat that effort mind you!  

[f350ca]

No doubt a beter way to go Willie. I bought a set of Chinese ones from KBC tools. Then I bought a set of Mahr 1/10ths micrometers. Those blocks are all over the place or the Germans can't make micrometers. Your guess.

[Pete O]

(03-28-2018, 05:40 PM)f350ca Wrote: No doubt a beter way to go Willie. I bought a set of Chinese ones from KBC tools. Then I bought a set of Mahr 1/10ths micrometers. Those blocks are all over the place or the Germans can't make micrometers. Your guess.

That's worth knowing; I've been tempted to look at chicom sets. Not any more.

[Highpower]

I don't know about German micrometers but I do have a couple of German drill chucks. I keep them on a red velvet pillow if that tells you anything.  

I thought about buying a Chinese/Taiwan set of block many times over the years but just couldn't bring myself to do it. I keep hearing they are just fine for most home shops where they aren't going to see every day use in inspecting space shuttle parts. But after the last set of Chinese 1-2-3 blocks that I got from a supplier turned out to be butter soft and looked to have been finished with a hand file, the word 'precision' did not immediately come to mind. I don't think my cobbled together set of Webber gages will work out to cost me any more than a new set of the current crop of import gage sets. But I have much more faith in their being properly hardened and finished more closely to size.

I also finally got myself a sine bar now that I will have some gage blocks to work with. While I love the little electronic level/protractor I have been using, it's only accurate to within 6 minutes of angle according to the specs. I can do better than that now using the old school technology. Go figure.  

[randyc]

My personal experiences are similar to a lot of us.  For example, my 1-2-3 blocks were about .001 oversize and not all that hard.  From kindness, I made the presumption that the blocks were purposely oversize so that they could be ground to size by the user.  Yeah, right.

I was luckier with my twenty-something-year-old MSC gauge blocks, for accuracy that is, but they also confirmed a long, long suspicion.  The set came with an inspection report including hand-written measurements and the specified tolerances.  I was pleased to see a comfortable margin between the measurements and the tolerances.

One evening, needing to do something with my hands while watching the news, I decided to check my set of "tenths" micrometers and their standards against the gauge blocks.  All went well until I happened to compare my measurements with the gauge block inspection sheets.  I was surprised to see that the first measurement didn't correspond with the recorded entry.  Nor the second ... nor the third .... and so on.

The blocks that I measured were all within specified tolerances but the so-called "inspection sheet" appeared to be an exercise in creative writing.  Maybe someone was assigned to fill in the blanks with arbitrary numbers - as long as the numbers were within the tolerance envelope.

Re-reading Willie's post, I could envision him sorting through the sets, cleaning and lubing the blocks as he went until he assembled a quality set for a bargain price - a very good idea in my opinion !  I wondered about the last time that I'd cleaned my set and to my embarrassment, I couldn't even recall the year.  Guilt motivated me to get the gauge block set out and spend over an hour cleaning them.  I found this:

   

Happily, I didn't find deterioration on the remainder of the set or on my measuring tools except for a small cast-iron angle plate.  The object lesson for me is obvious, of course.

But the incident made me wonder about cleaning and maintenance.  I looked at the online Starrett recommended procedure and it made sense, mostly, although I was surprised to find that gauge blocks should be replaced every year.  Huh ?  Even in a production environment this sounds extreme if their recommended handling and usage procedures are followed.

My WAY overdue maintenance procedure is to wipe the blocks down with one of those soft cloths that come with eyeglasses.  After that, a little swipe of baby oil (on my finger) to prevent "lesions" like the one shown in the above photo, LOL.  The baby oil thing was just because I happened to have some - the reason is long forgotten.  Probably some very light oil, sewing machine oil maybe, would be a better choice.

So now that the subject has come up, I'm curious about how the rest of you maintain your gauge blocks.  Any comments ?

[f350ca]

Just how many baby's have to be squeezed to fill that bottle Randy?

I didn't get the personalized certificate with mine, but a computer printout. They list a deviation for each block, but what is it? 10ths? 

[Highpower]

Greg, I don't know about your set but Starrett says they express their deviation in microinches (0.000001") or micrometres (0.001mm)
They measure a reference point (3 times) and average them. Then that number is compared to measurements taken at 4 other 'auxiliary points' (1 time each) to get the deviation. So the way I am reading it a deviation of '4' would be equal to 0.000004"(?) which is certainly way beyond my capabilities for measurement.  I'm thinking once I get mine cleaned up I will run them under a 10ths indicator on my surface plate and if I can see any needle movement at all the block is probably junk. Of course that only applies to the 2 lapped measuring surfaces. Starrett also has instructions on how to check a gage block's wringability using an optical flat. It just so happens I bought a couple of optical flats some time ago during a Surplus Shed sale. So I'll be checking them for that as well.

Randy, I also read the Starrett use and care pages and there it says the average life expectancy of a gage block is about 3 years.  

One thing I remember from watching one of Tom's videos was that he recommends using plain old Vasoline petroleum jelly for lightly coating your gage blocks for storage. I have been using his idea ever since for the pin gage sets I have and found it works a treat. So I'll definitely be doing the same with the gage blocks as well.