Seeking recommendations on non-Chinese 1/8" solid parallel set

[EmGo]

I'm not too keen on that option because my money would still go to China.

Not to worry, out of every dollar you spend, 2/3 goes goes to the retailer. That'd be msc or travers or whoever.

Good on ya for being careful tho, better to give your money to germany that invaded all of europe and gassed six million people or japan that bombed pearl harbor and invaded most of east asia and conducted experiments on live humans. We wouldn't want to encourage bad behaviour.

 

[___brad___]

Starrett or Suburban tool. If I had to choose, Suburban Tool.
But, I just harden and grind my own these days.

I'm kind of surprised by the number of people here that have grinders. I'm really curious: what make/model do you use? What kind of precision are you able to get on your hand-made parallels?

I just bought a set of Fowler 1/8" parallels. Each pair is supposed to be parallel within +/-.0002". If I had a grinder and could match that precision then I'd make my own in a heartbeat.

 

[___brad___]

Just received my "Fowler" parallels. The case has two labels on it though: one from Fowler and one from AMPG. I'm guessing both companies use the same factory in China and this case got mislabeled

The bars don't have the Fowler logo on them, so they're probably AMPG parallels.

 

[jccaclimber]

Not to worry, out of every dollar you spend, 2/3 goes goes to the retailer. That'd be msc or travers or whoever.

Good on ya for being careful tho, better to give your money to germany that invaded all of europe and gassed six million people or japan that bombed pearl harbor and invaded most of east asia and conducted experiments on live humans. We wouldn't want to encourage bad behaviour.

I see your point, but I'm a lot more worried about the guy down the street who is causing a problem now than the more friendly next door neighbor who's great grandfather did something unscrupulous before I was born.

It gets a bit goofy when you buy cars though. That good old Detroit 3 car/truck is sending a lot more money overseas than the Japanese Honda is.

 

[___brad___]

Not to worry, out of every dollar you spend, 2/3 goes goes to the retailer. That'd be msc or travers or whoever.

Good on ya for being careful tho, better to give your money to germany that invaded all of europe and gassed six million people or japan that bombed pearl harbor and invaded most of east asia and conducted experiments on live humans. We wouldn't want to encourage bad behaviour.

by that logic you shouldn't give money to the US either, seeing as they put citizens in concentration camps during the war

 

[eKretz]

by that logic you shouldn't give money to the US either, seeing as they put citizens in concentration camps during the war

If you're expecting that he'll argue against you on that one, I think you may find that you're mistaken...

 

[eKretz]

I'm kind of surprised by the number of people here that have grinders. I'm really curious: what make/model do you use? What kind of precision are you able to get on your hand-made parallels?

I just bought a set of Fowler 1/8" parallels. Each pair is supposed to be parallel within +/-.0002". If I had a grinder and could match that precision then I'd make my own in a heartbeat.

Brown and Sharpe MicroMaster. Low single digit tenths or even better is easily possible. You don't just need the grinder though, you need to know how to use it. There are a lot of little things you need to do right to get to that level repeatedly. And the grinder needs to be in good enough shape, or you need to know where on the table to grind so as to avoid wear (sometimes even how, like only grinding on the back direction cross feed, or with head slack up instead of down, etc.).

 

[jccaclimber]

I'm kind of surprised by the number of people here that have grinders. I'm really curious: what make/model do you use? What kind of precision are you able to get on your hand-made parallels?

I just bought a set of Fowler 1/8" parallels. Each pair is supposed to be parallel within +/-.0002". If I had a grinder and could match that precision then I'd make my own in a heartbeat.

I'm an engineer by trade, so I only get to pretend I'm a machinist the morning after I stay in a Holiday Inn, so take this with a grain of salt.
Of the places I've worked that have at least a Bridgeport, all have also had a lathe. Around 80% of those have also had a surface grinder. It's usually fully manual, no coolant, and neglected. The diamond is probably locked in the toolbox of the one maintenance guy who uses the machine. There might even be only one wheel, but it's available and it probably cuts steel even if not at mass production optimized rates.

Need a better finish, dress a bit too slow and spark out an extra time. Cutting too slow and putting in too much heat, take your time. Warmed up without coolant, get a cup of coffee or work on something else with the machine on but the part cooling, it's probably a permanent magnet chuck so no heat being generated there.

It's often an old B&S or Okamoto IME, though plenty of other brands. Half of them are older than me, often by a lot, but lightly used all these years and still cut just fine.

Just to point it out, you mentioned parallel, but not on size, which is a problem with regrinding existing parallels. If you only use your own it's not a big deal but sometimes I want to grab a parallel from my 1/8" set and one from my 1/4" set, or something else. If all you want is parallel you can take as many tries as you want. If you want it to be parallel *and* on size you only have one or two chances before it's too small. Still perfectly doable, but a lot more work than just making one set that only matches its self.

Much like having an old knee mill even though you have a 5x mill, a surface grinder bought used doesn't cost a ton and occasionally proves its self very useful if you have the space for it to take up the rest of the time.