Digital or dial indicator on height gauge

[C-Bag]

I glanced your original post Tony and was struck with how simple but perfect a solution. I was in a hurry at the time but it hung around in the back of my mind. I thought it was because no matter what I'm trying to mount on my old height gage I can't seem to find the setup for a lugged DI.

Then today I was doing some measuring and bang, there it was.

A year or two ago I decided to go on an eBay hunt for a height gage. I noticed nobody was hot for the old vernier's so I started watching close. Finally an old well cared for Starrett 14" came up with a veritable slew of attachments plus an old B&S .0005 DI w/buy it now of $110! I thought surely in all that I could mount ANYTHING, wrong. I still couldn't seem to work the lugged DI, until today. Now all the sudden that long piece close to the middle made sense finally. Makes me crazy I'd shifted that thing out of the way several times trying to solve that puzzle.

Thanks for lighting this dim bulb.

[metric_taper]

C-Bag, is this the attachment your referencing?

[C-Bag]

Yup, that's the one, sorry, I don't have an editing prog.

[metric_taper]

So I was searching for surface gauge info, and found this photo of a height gauge attachment;


I could not find any reference to this other then the photo credit of Aliexpress.com, and I could not find any industrial tools there.


Seems simple enough to copy. A side view would be handy.

[metric_taper]

Yup, that's the one, sorry, I don't have an editing prog.

I use paint.net, free download. I snapshot internet photos by grabbing the whole browser window ALT-Prt Scr, sometimes right click 'copy image' works. Then just paste it into paint.net, put a select box around the item you want to keep, and click on the crop to selection button on the tool bar. Then save as a .jpg (darn program defaults to .bmp) give it a file name and directory location. Then next step it allows you to reduce the pixel resolution and file size. If under 2Mb, I leave it be. This site I recall does not allow any image larger then 2Mb.

[Toolmaker51]

......... I noticed nobody was hot for the old vernier's so I started watching close. Finally an old well cared for Starrett 14" came up with a veritable slew of attachments plus an old B&S .0005 DI w/buy it now of $110!.....

C-Bag, this'll make your day. That Starrett is of their "Master" grade height gages and calipers, 50 thou verniers and note ''hardened and stabilized'' engraved right on the beefiest scale bar of any height gage. By choice, a TAS grail, and my height and caliper standard.
Then look up retail on a new one.

[C-Bag]

So I was searching for surface gauge info, and found this photo of a height gauge attachment;


I could not find any reference to this other then the photo credit of Aliexpress.com, and I could not find any industrial tools there.


Seems simple enough to copy. A side view would be handy.

At first glance, maybe. But look close at your DI's. Grabbing it where the plunger is, is not that great an idea and the cap on the other side. What do you do with that? Personally the attachment Tony showed and obviously the guy who had my old height gage knew what was up an is truly simple, IF you have those kinds of clamps that go over the probe and the attachment, which luckily came with my gage. It can also be rotated 90deg so far it's been just what I needed. It just kills me it was under my nose all along. For me it's been hard to find how some of these attachments work as they aren't as self evident as I thought. So far I've not found a comprehensive demo of how they are all used.

[C-Bag]

C-Bag, this'll make your day. That Starrett is of their "Master" grade height gages and calipers, 50 thou verniers and note ''hardened and stabilized'' engraved right on the beefiest scale bar of any height gage. By choice, a TAS grail, and my height and caliper standard.
Then look up retail on a new one.

Yeah, TM51 being a total noob I didn't see that fine print in the pics on eBay and truth be told, it would have just sounded like hype The thing that truly impressed me was the previous owner obviously used it daily as it had the paint completely worn off by handling, not scraping. I'll bet it was never in the case. It was also exempt from calibration. Unlike other things I've bought on eBay he REALLY packed it well too. It's another great old tool that reminds me of picking up a old daily played instrument. You can feel the mojo. Unfortunately it doesn't rub off and make me a better machinist, but like the old saying about blaming your tools, I know it's not the problem if there's a screwy reading.

Holy cow TM51, I just looked up the closest thing to that old height gage, aye carumba amigo! The best price new was $2k on msc, and the other shocker is that depth probe(which I've yet to use) was $250! Whoda thunk?

[metric_taper]

At first glance, maybe. But look close at your DI's. Grabbing it where the plunger is, is not that great an idea and the cap on the other side. What do you do with that? Personally the attachment Tony showed and obviously the guy who had my old height gage knew what was up an is truly simple, IF you have those kinds of clamps that go over the probe and the attachment, which luckily came with my gage. It can also be rotated 90deg so far it's been just what I needed. It just kills me it was under my nose all along. For me it's been hard to find how some of these attachments work as they aren't as self evident as I thought. So far I've not found a comprehensive demo of how they are all used.

Looking at the photos of these height gauge dial and test indicator adapters, I'm of the belief these are concept drawings, and you can't buy them, as there really is no value in the setup reusing the carbide scribe. And the short cantilever limits surface plate uses.

I don't have issue with clamping to the stem of a dial indicator, it's a finger tight thumb screw, not some bolt that is torqued and distorts the stem crushing it into an interference fit with the spindle of the indicator. I've not seen the need to tighten the thumb screw to cause bite marks in the stem. I do see the value in using the lug as intended, as every dial indicator I have, came with a lug back.

I have more issues with snugs that adapt the mag base or surface gauge to the indicator, as they all want to clamp round rod to round rod. The mag bases all came with a thumb screw tightened adapter, that attaches to the indicator lug (which fits DIN or AGD lugs), and then the snug clamps onto this.

Try to find adapters from metric DIN indicators to inch AGD bases. And from AGD to the import mag base which are metric. I've not found a snug that's intended to interface between them.

I can't get a Noga indicator holder mag base model that is DIN EU sold here in the USA. I purchased a Noga a month ago, and after seeing how rigid this is compared to any other mag base, I now want one for the DIN indicators. I'm limiting myself, as I don't want to pay full retail.

I can't find a M2.5 spindle pointer kit, like the common 22 piece dial indicator point set AGD with 4-40 threads. I can find them as individual points (limited selection), but not a set.

I work in both measurement systems, so when making a metric component, I measure in metric, same with inch. This reduces making a mistake with conversions. Hence I have indicators for the same ends.

[C-Bag]

You are right, those are just concept drawings as there is no visible attachment to the finger. I hate when they do this really detailed pic and it's magically attached.

I think I understand what you are saying. Even with all these different snugs I still can't always find the right one the correct diameter sometimes. I have my old Central 0-1" DI mag base kit I bought in '73 and use it most often for my other DI's. Mostly because everything is already there for a lug mount.

For me the idea of trying to mount by the stem is daunting because I've got a couple of Starretts, a Federal, a Mititoyou ,a B&S a couple of "made in Switzerlands" and they are all different. But the lugs aren't. And they are all in inches I don't have anything metric, yet.

After using the newly discovered DI mount it seems kinda long and I though of cutting it into two as one end is the bolt and nut and the other end is tapped but sure as I do, the very same afternoon I'll be sorry.