Ball attachment for surface gage for checking squareness

**Harvey Melvin Richards** · Dec 14, 2012, 02:17 PM

One way to check an item for square is to use a surface gage. You use the ball end of the vertical rod as your lower reference and an indicator as the upper reference and a known square surface as the datum. My problem with this method is that it makes the fine adjust on the surface gage difficult to use. So I took a hard drive magnet, a chunk of aluminum and a small tooling ball and came up with this.

**Jon** · Dec 17, 2012, 11:42 AM

Very interesting! I'm going to have Ken take a closer look at this tomorrow; we should have it added to the database by then.

**LORDDiESEL** · Dec 17, 2012, 10:32 PM

how did you get the finish on the base? That looks cool!

**Harvey Melvin Richards** · Dec 18, 2012, 07:48 AM

Originally Posted by LORDDiESEL

how did you get the finish on the base? That looks cool!

The base came finished that way. The finish is from case hardening. I have a lot of older tools that have this finish, but I never see it on newer tools.

**Jon** · Dec 18, 2012, 08:58 AM

Thanks Harvey Melvin Richards! This one has been added to our Measuring and Marking category, and of course to your homemade tools page: Harvey Melvin Richards's Homemade Tools. Your receipt: