Leitz Optical Dividing Head Teardown P1
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- Опубликовано: 8 окт 2024
- A slightly different video for you. We disassemble and study the internals of a high precision Ernst Leitz master optical dividing head. Originally used for metrology and inspection of gears and other circularly divided parts. This particular model can resolve divisions as small as arc seconds on the horizontal axis using a glass scale and elaborate optical system. Originally priced in 1951 dollars around $5225. This translates into roughly $52,000 in 2020 dollars. This instrument can also be used directly on machine tools for rotary indexing and rotary table machining operations. We open this unit up with a full Y incision and study some of the high precision opto-mechanical mechanisms and design features, albeit forensically. Unfortunately this video is really a machine autopsy. What would you call that? metopsy? Instropsy?
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oh oh I know the answer to your first question! Stefan Gotteswinter.
Stefan Gotteswinter is the answer to a great number of questions. Too many for a single man.
But he isn't grey!!!... oh well... I guess a grey spray can can fix that!
@Ol' Camo Easy there. Tony is doing the best he can. Not all youtubers can manage Gotteswinter levels of efficient German productivity.
sorry to be offtopic but does any of you know a way to get back into an instagram account?
I somehow lost the account password. I would appreciate any help you can offer me.
@Ricky Jacoby instablaster =)
Don’t give up on it!!!
All I can think now is “where is part 2!”
Great video as always
@komulista Where's the "I make a new one" guy when you need him? :)
Totally agree. Do not give up! It would be terrific if you could restore it, and would make for a fantastic vide mini series.
Come on, Tom. You know you're not going to give up on this beautiful machine. I'll bet you've already got the brass rod in the lathe to replace those damage screw covers. And there has to be some filing involved at some point or it wouldn't be a Lipton build. Can't wait for part 2. 😉
As I was seeing that, I thought, "First time a glue stick would be handy in the shop." Heat the end with a lighter, plonk it on, and pull.
Come on Tom you have to restore it, I can’t imagine what the cost would be to manufacture something like that nowadays, it’s a beautiful piece of engineering art, get it up and running.
Totally agree tony! It is a german girl, gutt n toight. AND lets not forget, the best divin head all of us have ever saw and probably will.
Plus one vote for restoration! Would love to see long format videos of the entire tear down and rebuild of this device.Send some assemblies out to the community for repair. Keep up the great work Tom! Looking forward to part 2.
The precision required in restoring this is beyond the skills of most in the community.
SuperAWaC It`ll basically be Tom, Robin Renzetti and Stefan Gotteswinter... oh my, what a collaboration that would be!
@@DonStinger there are a few others too like Steve Barton and whatnot but yes that's mostly the extent of it
I'd go for a "last part" disassembly and clean up. This Leitz gadget is not rocket surgery. Leitz had great engineers back in the day. Great engineers do the difficult simply. You have the talent, tools, and care but you may not have the time. If you have the time, do it and bring us ham-fisted fumblers along. Maybe bring in an optics buddy to demonstrate the methods and tools of optical work. I bet you could restore that wonderful relic to as-new condition and accuracy.
There are a lot of things inside there that seems to be bits and bobs from optical breadboard setups. Maybe Thor Labs or Edmund Optics has clues to things like thumbscrews and lens mounts/clamps. If nothing else, it can be restomodded to some more modern bits - if I can 3D print a Raman Spectrometer than we can probably find something cool to do that is also worth their time (maybe auction the new device for charity or something - the best lab gear is custom lab gear, you know it's true) if it can't be easily saved by trying non-invasive material replacement techniques like reverse electrolysis or whatever the technical term is for putting material back while removing corrosion/oxidation like those folks that buy old iron stuff from yard sales and use a battery charger to pull the oxidation off and replace some of the material that was lost, among methods.
@@russellzauner atom by atom reconstruction is not what the dude showin the dividing head is about. He bought the thing to see if he could save the iron for use or cash. Maybe if all of us make enough noise he will put the stifflegdeadlift ironplate back to dialing blondeones. Afterall, the guy managed to save an optical bubble level thingy that cost the bolts on this dividing head.
That's why the last time i servest one it tock one ouer its not that complicated
OMG!!! I am an electrical contractor at one of Corning's precision optics plants and I came across one of these in one of the labs the other day . I couldn't for the hell of me figure out what it was so thank you for this video
The tooling dept. I worked in had one of those with a face plate. It was used only in the Moore Jig Bore room. Tom, you would be the only guy other than the Jig Bore man, the company would let touch it! Cool as all get out...LIKE IT!
I'm i'm drooling,
Such an implement of precision.
I'm sure that you could restore it to its former glory.
Unless the optics are damaged I have full faith you can bring it back from the dead. I would love to see it happen! 🥰
Unfortunate such a precision piece was left to die like that. Thanks for taking us along for the ride.
Yes. Sad to see such a great instrument of relatively young age deteriorated like that
Tom, when pulling plates like the ones you have there on the rear of your unit, grab a couple of mag bases and stick them on. Magnetic power, and instant handles. Best of both worlds. Cheers, Cliff
Now you say something. Where were you last week?
Cheers,
Tom
@@oxtoolco LOL,, You know----- about 2,500 miles away. Keep smiling !
I'm glad you made the statement that its too far gone to restore, Tom. I'm watching and thinking, geez thats a mess. Ive reshuttered a couple leica cameras, and cla a lot more. I do know that if they had a long screw in a particular place its there for a reason. they didnt just make do with what was in stock. they're damn fussy to get back where they need to be, and surface rst makes that unobtainable I would think. enjoyed a lot. thanks for sharing.
Hey Emma. Thanks for the comment. This thing has icicles like the Titanic on the inside.
All the best,
Tom
Beyond repair Tom? I can hear My Mechanics shouting "Noooooooooo"
.oO( “I’ll make a new one“ )
Leitz is pronounced like "lights" in english (/ˈlaɪts/).
I was searching for a somehow matching word in english and finally got to 'lights' too. Now I see, you already did my job. ^^
People mixing up ei and ie activates my German pedant genes.
I've heard people pronounce this "Leets" like Tom and also "Litz." Having taken 4 years of German lessons, it hurts my ears too!
Oh, and for any fellas it might help - when you see "ie" in a German word, it's pronounced "ee" - the "ei" is as already noted, pronounced a a long 'i' as in the example "lights." So for Tom's pronunciation, the word Leitz (pron. "Lights") would need to spelled "Lietz." (Pron. "Leets").
Was just about to write a similar comment, starting off with a thank you very much for this great video. ;)
Thanks for a peak inside. That answered a lot of questions I forgot I had. As a kid in the mid 1970s, the engineers at Caterpillar Tech Center in Mossville use to give me pamphlets and brochures. Leitz had detailed technical advertisements. I never understood the split optics until seeing your video. Thanks. Makes a lot of sense. I got to see a Leitz divider head in the wild when I worked at Cincinnati Milacron. It is an impressive unit that speaks a new universe of money. The image sharpness and clarity of the scale was really surprising as I was use to dull and hard to read.
This particular unit lack clarity.......
Cheers,
Tom
Beautiful dividing head. Considering the accuracy of the faying surfaces it might have been contaminated by salt air. OMG the quality of that baby is Beautiful
I will never use one of these, or even have a use for one, but when I see the precision and care in manufacture and the very high quality I can't help but hope that you can bring it back and restore it to use. Absolutely love your channel by the way.
I love it back in the early 80s I had the pleasure of using one of these. In a tool and die shop in Massachusetts we made carbide tooling for early rivet manufacturing equipment. Blast from the past
Never ceases to amaze me how much damage the seemingly innocuous Universal Solvent is capable of doing
There's something special about these old machinist tools, its like mechanical artwork
This is old school quality machinery! Love it!
you could restore it if you wanted to. lots of work, but I'm sure you have the ability.and could get the alignment back.
It may be more of a time constraint than a question of his abilities.
I’m sure he could. It doesn’t look that bad to me either. My guess is it’s not worth enough money, or it’s not worth the time it would take. Also seems like something with a very narrow use case that probably doesn’t apply to what he does.
@@Kc12v140 To me it seems that he is just thinking it's outside his ability to deal with the optics. Getting those properly aligned after disassembly is no simple task. I think he could probably do it though.
@@electech3339 Yeah, I think he should try and get it running with minimal time and effort and maybe he might even get some use out of it...
Definitely an autopsy. Thanks for sharing Tom
A little Evapo-Rust and a wire wheel, I have confidence in you Tom. 😝
A brass-wire carding wheel for this one...
Don't forget about superglue and wd40..
Just dunk her in a big ol' tub.
Like you, I have confidence in Tom and figure he will not walk away from restoring this rare and unique device.
don't forget a hammer.
I remember these indexers turning up regularly in the 1980's. They were used by a company in the Tampa area that built inertial guidance hardware for ICBM's. I acquired a badly corroded version to tear down and remember the uniquely designed spherical race spindle ball bearings.
20:30 for pulling onto such flat surfaces, I use a suction cup salvaged from a car GPS windshield support. Quite powerfull and can be found for free in e-waste.
I kept thinking "suction" or "big magnet" while watching that -- I hadn't thought of a cheap and handy source of a suction cup where there's enough flat surface to attach to. Simpler and cheaper than the schemes that were going through my mind.
While it's apart, replace the dowel pins with pins that have threads for a slide hammer to pull them out easy. In case it ever has to come back apart you are ahead of the game. Whenever I am rebuilding something I always make sure to do it, made life easiermore than once.
Interesting find. Currently, I’m studying optics. When will the next part be uploaded? Hopefully soon
Looking at the inside almost had me crying. I have the same Ellis you have, and it does a very good job, for what it is. But this is pretty much the last great combination between the mechanical and optical arts for this type of device before computers made it obsolete.
I could also feel, in my chest, the torque you used on the screws every time you turned them.
Go for full restoration. A wonderful machine deserves no less.
Fascinating!
I too fix old machines from time to time (and I have a "new" one to fix).
Hope I can live up to your standards.... will try! :)
Slow and gentle (but stubborn) approach goes a long way...
If there was ever a machine built that was destined to for Tom Lipton's shop. This instrument is it. I agree with Tony B. that you will probably attempt to restore this machine to its former glory. You know it will always be in your thoughts until you do. Not to mention it will make for some interesting YT video. Be well, be safe and stay healthy.
Perhaps reconstruction may be possible. Please Mr. Lipton get "your partners in crime", Gotteswinter and Renzetti, into the loop. You 3 routinely work to the tolerances that MARVELOUS piece requires. Very tight budget here or not, I'd entertain a Go Fund Me effort to save 1 of the better efforts by Leitz/Wetzlar. Human operated stuff like that is what made the initial efforts at automation remotely possible.
Yeah, anything is possible if you apply your max efforts to it, but when it's finished and polished up what would you do with it?....a collectors piece?.....hardly worth the effort to have it sitting on the shelf in your workshop for the next time you need to super inspect a series of divisions you did with a cheap BS-0 dividing head.......I think this one is going to be put back together and sold or given to someone who likes museum pieces that were good years ago in a clean room but are now unreliable as a testing piece of apparatus......how can you fault a piece of work when the test equipment is faulty?
I don't often comment due to not actually being able to offer any info of value but please, pretty please restore that beautiful piece of equipment.
Those screwdriver tips are called hollow ground. Brownell's sells an awesome set of hollow ground 1/4" drive tips that are top of the line. They're pricey but worth it IMO. Plus they come with a lifetime warranty. The tips are also sold individually and they list the widths of each bit on their website. They're definitely worth the investment when working on something with slotted screws that you don't want to bozo up!
Getting video through eyepieces: often the tiny cameras on cell phones work well for that.
"bozonic activities" basically describes everything I do in the shop
I've worked with you before! Haha 🤡
Bosonic ?
I could FEEL the mechanism from the sounds - those German optics guys made amaaazing stuff. Bet you a dollar this was in LLNL at some point.
So it was actually used as a boat anchor! Interesting design... love the video
Yes. I should point out the shackle mounting holes in the next video.....
Cheers,
Tom
You've got to take a crack at restoring that! It's such an interesting and well made piece of equipment.
Always Something Precision & Fascinating from You Tom!! Thanks for your output and Input as to the impediment to a properly working machinery.
Awesome video Tom. Thanks for your effort! This looks like something you could restore to useable condition.
I like how it says “made in west Germany “ bit of history right there, don’t think we’ll ever see that again.
These were used in the calibration of early versions of the turbo encabulator. Very rare find indeed!
Not only in calibration, but also during the manufacturing process to align the spurving-bearing to the panametric-fam.
One of these came up locally. About US$1100. No idea what I’d use it for but it’s beautiful.
Nice piece and great Video, show us more!
ATB, Robin
Please try to restore it. it‘s such a wonderful piece of machinery
In addition to the parallel nature of gun smithing screw drivers I hear that it is important to have them the length of the slot as well. Mark Novak speaks to this on his youtube channel
Unfortunately they the gunsmiths peter out at around a quarter inch. Some of these screws were over 1/2 of slot.
Cheers,
Tom
I wouldn't say its too far gone, but i would wonder what you would do with it once restored.
Precisely!
Cheers,
Tom
Such a beautiful piece of machinery. I hope you can fix it up and get it going again.
"the point at which the ball bearings go flying" I could hear the sound in my head just then. Must have triggered a hundred traumatic memories LOL
As an enthusiast for mechanics, your videos are always awesome to watch! As a novice: I built a mini CNC Milling Machine from scratch - maybe you enjoy watching it too :)
Cool, to bad it can’t be used again... thanks for sharing your video!!!
Funny, some of my second hand optical tooling also has that same awful "dry" rust that seems to spring from otherwise perfectly intact surfaces. My guess is it's decades of not having anything oily applied for fear of getting it on the optics. And nobody ever wanted to take it apart for lubrication for fear of damaging the optics.
thanks guys good work..
A ZIP Code is a postal code used by the United States Postal Service (USPS). Introduced in 1963. Prior to that there were 2-digit "zones"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_Code
That’s an optical micrometer at 24:17. Similar to the one in the Wild T2 theodolite. Two plane-parallel slabs of glass displace the images to enable the fine (arcsecond) readout
For resyncing the scales, machine a horseshoe piece with the ends machined inline with each other. Then you can loosen the shafts that they pivot on and with some slight pressure on the "horseshoe" it should bring them back to alignment, then you can snug up the screws on the shafts.
I love mine! I have a Calibration Lab, I use this to calibrate high precision levels.
Reminds me of my dad disassembling Norden bombsights to salvage the bearings, shafts and gears. I still have a few bits and pieces lying around, but no complete ones anymore.
*DROOOL* Wonder what Ol' Stephan thinks of it ? ;P Lookin' forward to part 2!
I have been fascinated with optical dividing heads forever, and would love to see a full teardown of every component on this, including the optics. Serious question if anyone here is capable of answering it- is there any company left that could reproduce the rotary optical scales on this with equal accuracy in, say, 1/3 size? I know it's totally insane- but I've always wanted a scale functional model of one of these for use on smaller high precision machinery. Because reasons. I'm quite serious. Excellent video Tom! Please go all the way with this, they are one of the black boxes of the machining world.
The same technology is used to make circular divided scales for transits and theodolites, Optical encoder and glass measuring scales for machine tools.
Cheers,
Tom
For a moment there I was wondering when AvE developed a water allergy.
I actually thought he was about to say english and CANADIAN!!
Focus u fuck
Sorry to correct you Tom, however: Leitz pronounced "Leyetz", sounding in the middle like (pop)-ey(e). West Germany existed between 1949-1990. Opto-metric Tools was incorporated on the 18th of December 1974 as a foreign for profit corporation in New Jersey. Given that the "13" was "pioneered in the 1940s" and abandoned in 1963 for a five-digit code... Something is fishy! So, I'm guessing they moved out of New York in 1974 and the unit age is somewhere between 1949 and 1963.
According to my school German and a few moments of pondering suitable English pronunciation models, I came up with two possible suggestions. The similarly sounding words in my opinion are "LIGHTS" or the often seen "LITES". Maybe I have picked a bit too much of the Australian pronouncing (while visiting there), but these two are the best I could think of.
That's a great piece of machinery! Don't delay post the second part today! :D
Be careful with those boat anchors, Tom! I'm in the market for a Shop Crane because I'm recovering from a back injury obtained from lifting my rotary off my mill and down to a low storage shelf a couple of weeks ago. The probem is that a 12" BP rotary with handle brackets weighs 75% of what I do and the old back just wasn't up to it.
So sad to see rust inside.
But I feel like I’m six and taking apart that alarm clock again!
Thanks Tom!
Great video, sad the tool was not stored and kept dry, hate to see all that rust in it. thanks for the video and tear down,,
"What weighs 250 pounds, is grey all over, speaks English and German, and is allergic to water?"
Stefan Gotteswinter?
ooooo just the pic gave me a woody -- that is one beautiful piece of equipment.
West Germany is a dead give-away of its age. Either way, gorgeous machine. If i had one, in its off days, it would sit in my room so i can look at it. :D
Those illuminations scream want for a modern "hack" where they're powered by a few button cell batteries. Those wires kind of uglify the whole aparatus, and these days those pocket LED key chains are bright enough to blind you, so plenty of power from 3 of those button cells.
I dont know about dead give-away. West-Germany existed from 1945 to 1990, which is a rather round estimate of its age.
@@arnljotseem8794 I ate a few words in my excitement. That kind of plate was pre 90's in my experience. So that narrows it down to the period right in the middle because they didn't start using that kind of name tagging (to my knowledge) right after the war.
Ojala exista una segunda parte de reconstrucción de la maquina! saludos desde el Perú!
Bunch of old machinists sitting in the corner sucking their thumbs after this video.
Postal zones were implemented in 1943 and replaced with 5 digit zip codes in 1963, says Wikipedia.
What you smell is "West German Air" confined before the unification.
Can't wait for part 2. Curious how those somewhat spherical bearings work, I'm assuming they only exist to condense the bearing components for both rotational axes into a single part. Also curious at how bad the interior of this actually is, it had quite a bit of rust, but what component actually rusted that badly, and how easy would it be to replace it. Assuming the interior isn't too drastically bad, this could be a fairly simple restoration.
Really cannot blame anyone for not taking it apart once in awhile to clean and oil.You really want to send it back to it's maker.Cool piece of equipment. Good luck.
It could be the damage is just due to condensation forming inside of the instrument. A big chuck of metal like that would stay cold long enough for condensation to get trapped inside and cause the rust. If by any chance this can be restored(or even not), see if there is a way to fit some dessicant packs inside the mechanism to grab any moisture trapped inside.
The fact that is says "Made in West Germany" means it was made 1955 or later.
Very nice piece ! I have a measurement Microscope from Leitz.
They also made a very large Microscope with optical measurement arrangement that could be used as a Jig Borer
Thank you Tom. Excellent video.
This is a tuff one. All superior mechanical beauty made with a huge effort to get it right all the way for years to come. I love the product just as you do but restoring this to it's full accuracy requires the help of an old dude who serviced them in the past as a minimum. Otherwise your lost in such an intricate structure. You just don't know why everything is as it is. But you're sure everything is thought out real carefully and here you are poking through the internals without a real clue. Feels like disintegrating a Faberge egg with an axe or a similar tool or a similar delicate product. The fine tuning after machining only probably took weeks for guys who knew what they're doing. You could take it all apart and clean the parts as a magician. That's possible and would feel good just as filing does. Mounting and recalibrating afterwards would be at least a huge effort or maybe even impossible. It breaks your heart to see such a great piece of high end engineering and machining in this state and concluding that recovering is not an option for a person with another life too. I feel your pain and hate the sucker who went sailing with it. I want to thank you for keeping me on my toes for the during of this video. I hoped you would dig in deeper but I totally agree with your conclusion to leave it as it is. Leitz should have use stainless ;-) Best regards, Job
The screwdrivers are “hollow ground”
Impact drivers work pretty well for tight slotted screws. The ones that you hit with a hammer. Not sure if that’s actually what they are called because I keep thinking Dewalt when I say impact driver
9:20 Question about the worm gear. Was wondering, is it a seperate part so when it's worn down you don't have to replace the whole part attached to it?
Can't wait for the next episode. Awesome stuff Ox
Anyone else just learn that stuck slot screw trick Tom did at 15:46? Thanks Tom!!
Hi Tom, it is incredible how much oxidation has formed inside this jewel of technology. It seems to have been forgotten in the hold of a ship or in a very humid cellar.
I keep waiting for you to figure out a way to restore it anyways... Plot Twist! An astute viewer from Germany has the assembly manuals from his grandfather's shop along with the alignment jigs and procedures. That's not too much to ask for, right? Hope you are well and smiling - Tom Z
Yikes! Don't give me his contact information. This is about a years work to bring it back to life. Then what?
Cheers,
Tom
@@oxtoolco Then all of us weirdos love you for it, I reckon. No greater reward in life than that.
That thing can be restored, it´s rusty, but not far gone.
It still moves easily, so the bearings seems to be fine, the issue with the worm seem to be just adjustment-related in its tilting mechanism.
I´d like to say "Ship it over to its home country, I´ll try to get it back in usable shape!" but I´m pretty sure the postage alone will leave me broke.
Got no education in the mechanical field though, but tinkered around with mechanical calculators for some years and got a few old cameras working again, so it should be doable.
Awesome tool have used many times.
Pricey I imagine..... I am long time photog and I love me some Leitz and Leica
FWIW, Opto-Metric ceased operations in 1982, and they appear to have been a wholly owned subsidiary / factory rep for Leitz.
Oh my. You know what happened? A closed box always collects water inside due to temperature cycling. Nowadays such things have a desiccant breather.
The mechanism is following: Upon warming the unit, air is expanding inside and is moved out due to increasing pressure. Upon cooling down air is returning back from the outside. If the unit gets cooler than the dew point of the inside water vapour, water drops condensates on the surfaces. Unfortunately, heating again does not dry the inside, the liquid water remains. After many cycles you have enough water for severe corrosion.
Such a shame this is too far gone for restoring it, but I’m glad it made its way to your workbench, so we can learn how it went together, and how it’s mechanisms worked.
Beautiful piece of equipment. In hindsight, consider the vintage of equipment particularly when your fascinated by an interesting smell. In some cases seriously toxic chemicals can draw you in. After a chemical has been discontinued you may not have smelled it for years and the smell triggers your memory....drawing you in.
Dang, that's a good point.. Lewisite is a good example of this..
@@MrJackandEmily What is lewisite?
@@RobertWilliams-mk8pl is a poison that was developed during ww2 that smelled exactly like geraniums.. Thankfully it was never used.. Imagine that aye..
Yeah like Carbon tetrachloride..... Yum!
@@oxtoolco I usually have mine on toast with a nice cool glass of coolant..😁
Hey thanks for taking the time to put this stuff online, it's hard to find good engineers to learn from these days..
Deutsche Technik und Handwerkskunst !
Subscriber from Philippines
Did you happen to find out how it came to be so corroded? Wouldn’t expect to see it in that condition, did it set out in the rain?
Man, this would be a year long of entertainment for me: strip it down bit by bit, restore it, put it back together, wonder what those 2 remaining screws are for...