Brass Clamping Screw for Starrett V-Blocks

[Paul Jones]

C-Bag,
You don't find deals like that too often and great story. I like B&S tools and have Mics with the lever locks made by Brown & Sharpe. I was looking at my old Starrett boxes for my V-blocks and these were marked $8.25 from Ernst Hardware in Seattle. I remember buying these in the early '70s when it seemed like Boeing was laying off half of Seattle (there was a billboard reading "Will the Last Person Leaving SEATTLE -- Turn Out the Lights" posted near the Sea-Tac International Airport. I offered the store clerk $8.25 for both boxes of V-blocks and he said yes. By the way $8.25 in today's dollars can be calculated at https://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ and you will see that $8.25 is more expensive than you would think.

PJs,
The old Starrett tools seem to have odd screw sizes and probably just because they can. I was going to use a standard 1/4-28 die to make the clamp screw threads but I doubled checked with my electronic caliper to make sure. At first, I thought my caliper had reset its zero point when finally I realized Starrett had an odd screw size. Of course Bozo came to visit me when I made the second threaded part on the lathe. I machined the major diameter at 0.233" instead of 0.223 by misreading the digital mic and then single point threaded the part only to find the thread wouldn't fit. I learned to never release the lathe clutch or gear settings until you can check the threads. I was able to turn it down to the correct diameter and finish the thread without any problems.

Thanks for the comments, Paul