Try this at home dial measurements

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reible
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Posts: 11283
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 12:08 pm
Location: Aurora, IL

Try this at home dial measurements

Post by reible »

After Charlese got one of those dial gauges from shopsmith I knew I had to get one too... you know keeping up with the "Charlese's".

First thing I wanted to do was see how close my table alignment was so I put in a blade and shimmed out the miter bar (.006) on my system. Darn if it wasn't .001 off and here I thought it was perfect.

Of couse when I get a new tool I need to play with it some.

So with the blade still mounted and the miter bar still shimmed I set it in the middle(ish) of the blade. Re-zeroed the gauge at that position. I then pushed on the edge of the table and found without a great deal of effort I could change the setting .012. When I stopped pushing it went back to zero. I then pulled with about the same force and the reading moved by .015. When I let go it went back to zero. Please note these measurements don't have a lot of meaning at this point but keep reading.

As we all know the shopsmith main table is supported on two legs. So when I pushed or pulled I'm either flexing something or taking up slack in the parts... the fact it returns to zero is interesting and makes me tend to think of flexing.

Now we also know that if we were supported on 4 legs things should get better. If you have the 510/520 you have a rail system so when you add a extension table and put the bars in place this is very much giving you 4 posts to stand on. As you might expect this is what I did and then repeated what I had done before (also interesting when I got the extension table in place and the rods in and setup as I normally do I was expecting to see I had to re-zero. I did but it was off my less then half the distance to the next mark... .0005 or less. This time both the push and pull test resulted in deflections of .0035. This is a major change!

Next I went for the extra extension table I have and the 5 foot tubes. This time the change was a very minor improvement to .003 both ways.

I took some pictures but they didn't turn out very well but I do have one that shows the set up in case you want to do this at home and report back your results. Keep in mind I had the table set low as can be seen by the amount of blade exposure, the gauge was hitting the blade as can be seen and the blade was not moved. So your actual numeric numbers will not likely match mine for more then one reason. What I think would be interesting is to see how they change with the addition of a extension table and rods.......

Photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12199425@N02/sets/72157602148737129/
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Photo's have been removed 12/08
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Attached here:
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Updated 1-15-09
Ed
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test setup dial indicator.jpg
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charlese
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Posts: 7501
Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:46 pm
Location: Lancaster, CA

Post by charlese »

Good Job, Ed! (Whoops! I mean Sir Ed!) Just noticed your new signature/sign off.
Octogenarian's have an earned right to be a curmudgeon.
Chuck in Lancaster, CA
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