A3 31 Clock/thickness gauge

[David Nelson1]

I sold 2 machines to get a combo for more room in the shop and I already am feeling a bit of remorse. I'm sure that will dissipate with time ....

For those that have this machine with the imperial clock, how the heck do the read the 16 large tick marks and equate that to the indicate value? A sweep of the handle equals .0787 or 2 mm. At first blush as soon as I saw 16 marks I went tada... only to remember that one sweep is not an inch.

To calibrate the gauge they say pick a number, mill to it, and lock the table. This is your reference then remove the gauge roll it on a table or other means to your reference number leaving the sweeping hand pointed north then reinsert.

Is it safe to assume that if I picked 1" for my reference that will be the only number that I can identify visually since there is no third decimal point place? BTW if you do the math each large tick mark is .0049. I need some suggestions on how to deal with this, its kind of a big deal to me. Last machine dialed in 1/16" per sweep of the crank in either direction I got spoiled I guess.

No, I'm not switching to metrics. "I'd rather fight than switch"

[Mark Carlson]

I have the same machine with the imperial digital gauge. Your right that one sweep is 2mm, which is a little bigger than a 1/16th of an inch. More like 5/64th of an inch. On my gauge the digital read out tells me exactly what thickness will be, at 2in it reads 2.00, at 2 1/2 it reads 2.50. If I need 2.375 I let the gauge go where the 7 is in the middle (half way to becoming an 8).

I guess I dont care that one sweep is 2mm because I just read the gauge value. I typically do 1 turn for each run and then less when I'm getting close to final thickness. This gauge is really accurate and never needs to be re calibrated. No battery to run out. Its awesome.

~mark

[James Zhu]

I heard some people mentioned that Felder has a decimal imperial hand wheel, so 1.5 inch = 1 1/2 inch, but I have never seen it. You might want to contact Felder.

Btw, I also saw a guy from Felder forum affixed a 12" iGaging Digital Scale with remote readout tothe table, drilled and tapped the Hammer steel body with 10-32 to mount the magnetic rail, used a length of aluminum bar stock to carry the reader and attached that to the table with some 1/2-13 all thread and some nuts.

http://s1002.photobucket.com/user/zy...a3156.jpg.html
http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af143/zydaco/The%20Shop/DRO%20on%20JP/IMAG0502_zpsa664a9e8.jpg
http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af143/zydaco/The%20Shop/DRO%20on%20JP/IMAG0501_zps42b384e9.jpg
http://vid1002.photobucket.com/albums/af143/zydaco/The%20Shop/DRO%20on%20JP/VIDEO0021_zps103014d6.mp4
http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af143/zydaco/The%20Shop/DRO%20on%20JP/IMAG0505_zps591208ca.jpg

[Mark Carlson]

This is what my gauge looks like. Currently in jointer mode so almost all the way down.

IMG_0276.jpg

[David Nelson1]

yup looks the same as mine. Thanks for posting your pic. I forgot to attach one.

[David Nelson1]

I have the same machine with the imperial digital gauge. Your right that one sweep is 2mm, which is a little bigger than a 1/16th of an inch. More like 5/64th of an inch. On my gauge the digital read out tells me exactly what thickness will be, at 2in it reads 2.00, at 2 1/2 it reads 2.50. If I need 2.375 I let the gauge go where the 7 is in the middle (half way to becoming an 8).

I guess I dont care that one sweep is 2mm because I just read the gauge value. I typically do 1 turn for each run and then less when I'm getting close to final thickness. This gauge is really accurate and never needs to be re calibrated. No battery to run out. Its awesome.

~mark

I other words you don't use the tick marks but rather eyeball increments. Nothing wrong with that, working to the .001 is kinda nuts since wood moves. My point I guess is trying to make sense of a gauge that should by all rights read to the third decimal.

If it just had a yard stick taped to it that would be the scale of refinement I would expect. Still interesting to hear other views.

[Mark Carlson]

I just realized that 1 tick is a 1000th of an inch. So each of the 16 larger ticks is 5 thousands of an inch. Not sure if that helps you or not.

It does have a yellow yard stick on the right side that indicates the resulting thickness. I use that when switching modes and going to the 1st cuts thickness. You can just make it out on the right side of my picture.

I know a full sweep of the indicator is a little greater than 1/16 but I still think of it that way. half a sweep is ~ 1/32, and a quarter is ~ 1/64. Thats close enough for me.

~mark

[David Nelson1]

I just realized that 1 tick is a 1000th of an inch. So each of the 16 larger ticks is 5 thousands of an inch. Not sure if that helps you or not.

It does have a yellow yard stick on the right side that indicates the resulting thickness. I use that when switching modes and going to the 1st cuts thickness. You can just make it out on the right side of my picture.

I know a full sweep of the indicator is a little greater than 1/16 but I still think of it that way. half a sweep is ~ 1/32, and a quarter is ~ 1/64. Thats close enough for me.

~mark

I kinda over looked the smaller tick marks. Like i said the 16 large ticks = .0049 so to round things up so that each tick is .001 is cool. I'm going to recalibrate my dial because it seems to be off .030. Might be close enough for some and I generally agree with that. For this adventure I wont accept it since my purpose is to dial to a repeatable size and understand this gauge, not to mention get used to the new machine. More to come............