Frosty Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 I love it when you let your Geologist self come out and play George. Having to collect my own coal is the main reason I burn propane. I am looking at the Talkeetna mountains out the living room window a range of coal seams 200 miles+/- wide 400 long and -2,000 to+ 4,000 elevation on average. It's about a 45 minute drive to decommissioned strip mines but remembering which side of which ditch is metallurgical coal and which is one of several other kinds of heating coal left me years ago. I can't even find my old collecting ditch. The coal being mined near Healy is virtually all going to China and only a very limited supply of so-so stove coal is being sold by the sack here. It gripes me to have world class smithing coal visible that I can't access without mounting an expedition to collect enough to be worth it which unfortunately violates the agreement by which private citizens can collect coal for personal use. <sigh> Nice if modest score Scott. I love my curve-o-mark even though I don't need it very often. When I do though! I don't know what it is about calipers but I see them in pawn and second hand shops all the time by the bin full and when I go garage, yard, etc. saling they're everywhere. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 What curve-o-mark do you speak of? They made a lot of things. Yep, it's a modest score but go price a new one... It does take the thinking and mathematics out of things and is in my mind just another tool. I should have left the calipers out of the picture. Live and learn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 The one with all the sliding pins that lets you copy a contour by pressing it onto it. Mine is IIRC 4" maybe more. Dandy handy tools. Nothing wrong with showing the gang a rich booty of calipers, I use them frequently enough to appreciate the different sizes in my tool box. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Those calipers and dividers often have good resale value. I once got a big box of these from a Facebook Marketplace listing, and they did very well on my tailgating table at Quad-State. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Calipers and dividers are really handy. I have one small and one large compass fitted with sharpened tig tungstens for marking steel without dyechem or paint. Maybe one of these days I'll get a chance to hit a large conference and ogle the goods. It's not like Deb would let me put much extra in her RV but a boy can dream. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 There's a few Starrett in there. I am such a die hard tool collector. I really don't need a contour marker but I used these things in the old days. And it was flee market cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Starretts are good, I've been using Starrett instrumentation since Dad's shop was in the garage and was the only Jr. Hi kid with his own mic in metal shop 101. Unfortunately that gave the instructor the impression I actually knew how to USE a machine shop. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Do you see that pin loaded countour thing in the lower part of the picture? I'd like to meet the person that these tools came from. I've been going round testing it on things and they work pretty good for what they are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Yes, that's the one I was referring to, mine is about 2x as wide and cost a bunch new, I got mine at a shop liquidation sale along with a wraparound and more. I got to shooting the breeze with the old fellow who was holding a retirement sale. Neither of his kids wanted to get into the business so he was selling it off and going to Europe with the missus. We got to talking and he threw in a bunch of other things gratis I could've bought a lathe or mill for scrap if I hadn't lived in a mobile home in S. Mountain View. He was royally ticked at his sons. I understand their point of view, I certainly didn't want to become a metal spinner after spending the 1st. 17 years of my life working in a spinning shop. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 That was the original plan, but you got turned around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 No, that pin thing is not the curve-o-mark countour marker. I mainly asked that as the pin one was new to me. I would buy those machine tools and slip them under the trailer. If I had the sheckles at the time. There's an old fellow that has a second hand shop near me that reminds me of him. He is nearly deaf and we have to yell at each other. He's touchey too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Okay, I'm unfamiliar with the contour marker in the top right of the gold pans but I found pics online. Don't have one of those, how's it work? I would've had to jack the mobile home at least 5' off the ground to slip the small lathe under it and lay the mill on it's side. Uh, I got Dad's plan turned around, he didn't want me to become a metal spinner? Or it WAS his plan and I swum upstream? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 I guess I think small sometimes. I am a hobbiest. Sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Oh MAN, I'm a hobbiest, should I be sorry too? Thanks for the video, I remember the things now but that was in high school. All we did in the welding school was run bead and study the book and that was to earn my pipe and structural cert! Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 I will say these are pretty handy too. I know this is fabrication stuff but I think it's all tools to use. The dial is adjustable. Same company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 That would be handy alright, bummer I don't work with pipe more I'd have to get one. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Hobby, hobbier, hobbiest…. (Not to mention hobbits.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Perhaps somebody on the world wide web will... Can you figure out how to adapt it to angle iron... Looking at that video, I think the narraration got it backwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Hobbieism, hobbielity, dishobbility? . . . Uh . . . Hobbangley, Hobbangler? One of the how to videos shows it being used on H beam and that just works the one 90 angle so I imagine using it on angle iron would be the same. Better exercise a LITTLE control, I'm probably playing HOB with the mods. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 I really think the video is wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 Which video? The one I watched made perfect sense but there are a number out there. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 Whoops. I need glasses, I'm blind as a bat sometimes.... I was looking at mine. Sorry about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBones Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 That thing with the pins i have always heard called a contour gauge. It is quite useful in carpentry. Say you are laying floor and there is a pipe or something that you need to fit around. Just push it against the pipe then transfer that "image" to your board and it will fit. Takes a lot of guess work and trial and error out of doing it. Starrett makes quite high quality measuring tools. Just about every set of mics i have ever owned has been Starrett. Brown & Sharp is also a good brand but i have a hard time reading them. All of our digital instruments at work are Mitutoyo. They measure down to .000005". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 You got it Billy, that sort of situation is probably what they're used for most often, another that comes to mind is reproducing antique molding. You use instruments good to a hundred thousandths! Thank you for reminding me I'm more than 50 years out of the biz! Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBones Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 We have this machine that you input the dimensions of the of part, put parts in the machine, and it uses lasers and within about half second measures all those dimensions and tells you what the measurements are and if they are out of spec are displayed in red. Those instruments are by 1/2's to the hundred thousandth but accurate to the tenth. A lot of parts i run have +/- .0005" tolerance. I am also holding that tolerance on a machine that was designed 100 years ago and run anywhere from 3,000 to 17,000 a shift. Depending on material, size, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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