In the mid-60's I was on a Polaris Submarine repair ship and I worked in the Fleet Mechanical Calibration Lab. We had 2 black granite surface plates a 4'X8' and a 2'X4', we calibrated our own using a procedure from Metrology Engineering Center in Pomona, Calif. we measured every inch and plotted it using a Davidson D638 autocollimator and a precision front surface mirror. It would take as about 2 days to shoot the big plate and about a half day to shoot the small plate. Then we would enter all these measurements into a Frieden mechanical calculator and it would set and crank out for about 8hrs to give us our high and low spots as I remember it was a AAA plate but we used it for everything from a bed to ironing our uniforms on. It was mainly used to calibrate all the optical equipment we serviced, when I went back in the Navy in the early 70's nearly all the optical stuff had been replaced by electronic equipment. I really loved working on and calibration optical instruments. Those days are long gone.
+Bill De La Vega It's actually a very simple thing to do. I mean, people make telescope lenses/mirrors at home with similar (yet applied to the world of glass) methods and devices. I can totally see something like this done by someone with the tools and patience required. I remember reading about a guy who made a 60 cm mirror and had it checked and he was within PRO levels of accuracy. But yeah, those two are very adept at what they are doing, also, well oiled teamwork.
+aserta Yeah, I have also been fascinated by telescope mirror making. Technically grinding and polishing a telescope mirror looks quite alike and simple. However the accuracy of the parabolic mirror has to be within 1/8 of the wavelength of visible light, about 2,7 millions of an inch. While polishing looks simple, getting it right is actually hard to do. Even the experienced amateur mirror makers often have to take several attempts. It is not like dusting the high spots down using a surface grinder. The motion of the lap is the key. The pattern the lap is moved by, whether in strokes, ovals, swirls and with which overlap: all influences how and where material removed.
Tom, thanks for sharing this with us! The process of flattening granite surface plates isn't seen often by machinists. I saw the tail end of a calibration about 30 years ago but that's all. Funny story - when I first began working in the engineering department where I'm working now (25 years ago) I found under a huge pile of junk, a pink granite surface plate , a monster size 6 foot by 10 foot. After I cleared it off and tried cleaning it, I found globs of hardened epoxy all over it's surface! It turns out that a bunch of students were using it to make composite panels on it! That stone must have cost 10's of thousands of dollars and was used as a table! We have since gotten rid of it and I replaced it with a 4 x 4 foot pink stone that I use to set up fixturing for my new wire EDM.
6 лет назад
AAH!!! the money that schools spend is indeed staggering, the mistreatment of what is purchased is even more staggering!!
Great to see folks who are enthusiastic about their work, happy to be filmed, and happy to explain for everyone even though they probably weren't expecting it. It says great things about the company and the professionalism. Big thumbs up to Precision Granite for this (and you of course Tom!)
25+ years in manufacturing and I have never seen this done. Thank you so much for posting this video. It's not at all what I had imagined. Great stuff!!
Man, I've watched this like 3 times over the last few years, and it's still as entertaining as the first time I saw it. You can really tell these guys love what they do. Love how they took time to educate you and us. Thanks again Tom!
I'm coming into contact with precision plates for the first time and this is completely blowing my mind! I love how so many precise things come from such a simple tool... a surface!
Man, I'm a geomatics engineer (formerly know as a survey engineer) and these guys are talking about 1/4 second precision and all that, that's incredible! You've got to have some pretty fancy equipment to reach that precision, I'm gaining some new appreciation for the measurement precision needed in machining.
Interesting work. It was nice that the guy was into talking about what he was doing and let you video it for us. That story about the lady who only wanted the B certification was hilarious.
+ILGopher yes it was. But you run across those people everywhere in every field. We once had a customer complain to us that the picture on her new computer looked to good...
+ILGopher Good kid, excellent customer service skills combined with great technical aptitude=fine employee. It was nice to see he is passionate about his job also, which I thought was shown by his comment about being grateful for Tom's interest and participation in the process. Great video and I hope everyone is doing well, Aloha...Chuck
+ILGopher I understand the desire for B certification. It's like buying a car and worrying about the first scratch. I usually just give the bumper a little ding myself so I stop worrying.
Just bought a small lathe and came here looking for machine tips and setup etc. Half and hour later and I am absorbed in surface calibration. Awesome vid! It was great to see someone so passionate about his work. He should really be working for himself. Only a good tradesman invites observation and inspection.
I used to hear legends about guys like these in my shop days and it's funny to have RUclips now, and see the guys doing it. They weren't even born when I was in high school.
@Robert Slackware that's what he was showing with them "charging" the plate with diamond. They put either a very thin coating of wet diamond lapping paste, or dry diamond lapping powder on the roller, and then roll it into the plate. Because the diamond is obviously harder than the cast iron plate, much of it embeds into the cast iron.
i recently took an interest in reconditioning and collecting tools. even ones i wont ever actually use. understanding how they work is so fascinating in the respects that the thinking and evolution that have gone into making them tools blows my mind. recently i brought a double sided diamond lap from faithfull tools and when i started using it for sharping wood chisels and plain irons i quickly realized that a flat surface is imperative for a keen edge. ive even used the lap to flatten my polishing stones and used them on the plane irons. so far the shaveings have come off the wood at 3 thou or less. never underestimate the value of a good flat serface.
I have avoided this video for months thinking , '"how boring". RUclips has been trying for months to get me to watch it as a top level recommendation. Today I ran out of stuff I wanted to watch. So, here I am. Great video Tom, I learned a bunch and no longer intimidated by the prospect of buying a used granite. I would love to know how much three pieces cost to re-certify and/or lap.
Tom, you blew my mind with this one. Never have I seen this process, and its amazing how (relatively - given that young guys expertise) simple it was.... I'm still digesting this video. Absolutely useful.... Thanks a million, Daniel.
Great video! I'm a metrologist for the DOD...good memories of using the auto-collimator /w mirrors to cal rocks. We now use electronic leveling heads...not as glamorous as the optical way. Very, very cool vid. We have that same H/W collimator on the shelf...it's a beaut.
+Michael Dodge Hi Michael, I am fond of Hilger Watts equipment. I have a level that has a bakelite case lined with leather. Every time I open it up it smells like instruments and precision. Thanks for the comment. Cheers, Tom
Hello Andy. My name is Len. Been watching your videos for the last few months. Just want to tell you that where you are is beatable. I know because I have been there for both treatments and today have a quality of life second to none. Your will be back in the tractor for planting.
Absolutely fascinating. A recently deceased neighbour was a metrologist before he retired, you should see his kit. As an ex glazier and amateur optician I love to see this kind of absolute accuracy. I have a couple of Hilger & Watts diffraction gratings and a clinometer, fine tools.
So the standard of standards all boils down to rubbing two flat surfaces ... awe hell ... as complicated as measuring some machining surfaces can get, in contrast it seems so stone-age simple to get it there. It all goes back to rubbing two rocks together. Thanks for giving us a look at the process!
Hi Tom! For me, this qualifies as the top most informative video of the year! My wife and I both found it fascinating. The tech guy was speaking so fast, I had to rewind and listen more closely. Many thanks for sharing this info which I had never seen or read about anywhere else. Daniel
I've seen this done once, a few years back. I do recall seeing a repeat-o-meter used, but instead of lasers or an autocollimator, they used some other device. I recall it squeaking against the palate. I was too busy working to get what was going on, unfortunately. Cool process, same realm as hand scrapping. Very neat video!
Tom, Awesome video! I've always been mystified about how such a precision piece of equipment could be so relatively inexpensive to purchase. Now it all makes sense!
This was quite interesting and entertaining, thanks for the upload and also to the nice guys from the company for taking their time, explaining stuff and letting you have a look. This would almost never be possible here in Germany. We might do it as thorough as these guys, but you wouldn't get that nice of a chat out of it as time is precious and the guys have to be hyper-efficient and customer-chat is a "waste of time". It's funny that he's providing you with a free "upgrade" on the surface quality. This reminds me of Thyssen Krupp steel works, where TK used to make different grades of steel. Automobile industry always did order grade B but they always got grade A, as it was too costly for TK to downgrade their production processes. When the Chinese started to buy almost all of the scrap metal on the planet it became too costly to uphold the grade-A-process for TK an they startet to do grade B for the automobile industry. The industry then complained about the bad quality, but that's what they were paying for in the fist place. They never even realized that initially their orders were much higher steel quality. So this guy is doing it right: he tells you what you're paying for, but he also tells you what you get, so you can appreciate it. That's were TK got it wrong (Germans are not that good in communication with customers and proper advertising... :) ). Thanks for your videos and your effort you put in them! Keep it up! Cheers from good ol' Germany Alex
+0Fidel0 Hi Alex, Thanks for the interesting story about the riddle of German steel. These guys were very generous with their time and expertise. Hopefully this video will make up for the loss in efficiency. Thanks for the comment. Cheers, Tom
Ancient video but awesome. Having surface plates so accurate gives you the ability to do precision machining that is hard for me to imagine as a hobbyiest
Excellent video Tom! Never seen how this was done and am glad I could see it. The whole process seems so simple but that's what professionals do.....make it look easy.
I haven't seen this done optically before. The companies I've used have always used precision electronic levels. I liked the comment about the work improving the lapping equipment. I've been told that some manufacturers make surface plates / tables in pairs, using each to simultaneously lap the other.
Used to work around a place that made Blade Rotor parts for the Black Hawk, they used a 8 ft by 10 ft inspection table, with a computer controlled touch system on a arm, used to sit and watch that machine do its thing. Truly amazing work.
Sorry I don't know the main tech's name, but it's really amazing to see someone that knowledgeable doing something like this. So many technical "professionals" learn how to read the dials, and not much more. This guy knows what his instruments are doing, how to use them, and exactly what the results mean. Bravo.
Closest work I've ever had to do was on seamless can tooling ( carbide and ceramic punches ) the profile on beer and soda cans ( OD/ID grinding ) all had to fall within 50 mill.
Very interesting video. I never new how much accuracy those granite lumps of rock could be honed down to. I notice you also have a Myford machine behind the big surface plate. Myford were still going until they went into liquidation in 2011 and all the stock was sold. Very sad but another company have taken over the production of new Myford Super 7 lathe which is a highly respected small lathe for hobbyists and smaller engineering establishments. They also still produce many accessories for Myford lathes. Many budding engineers got their first training on those beautiful little machines which were highly respected and still are. You can still buy a new one for about $10 000. They also refurbish used Myfords which are still in high demand in the UK.
Hi Tom, what a treat, and as my physics teacher said 'Keep it short and simple', nothing works in this world that is not related to physics!!!! Really enjoy your videos (including the physics stuff) regards. Joe
Hi Tom. In previous videos, I thought your middle size granite had a wear mark or scratch on it, about a quarter way from the right side. We see the line at 25:25. But after this video we can see it a natural line in the granite, it's amazing to see how nature made that almost straight line in stone.
+John C Hi John, Its just a line of lighter colored granite in the plate. Another person thought it was a crack. I never really noticed it until they lapped off the dirty couple of tenths of surface. Thanks for the comment. Cheers, Tom
It's not a straight line. It may look straight and be fairly straigh but what you know what they say about straight lines in "nature". There are no straight faults in stone and the plate was probably broken at some point and was repaired or it was flawed from day one and hasn't broken completely. Granite itself is nothing but small rocks stuck together by dried mud more or less. And a lot of "granite" if not most these days is synthetic anyway. They call it "engineered stone". You don't think natural granite REALLY comes in all those colors for countertops and there's a thousand quarries out there full of it, do you? Granite is "stone" and "stone" is a composite. Rock is monolithic. The composite nature of granite and the fact that its basically lots of pebbles and fragments in a "cement" binder is what allows it to expand and contract and "breathe" without breaking. It has no grain so when it does crack its not along a straight line or across a grain the way rock breaks and in the process distorts and springs and is impossible to get back in one piece. Granite will break along a "fault line" and through the "cement" but the pebbles and fragments of rock should fit right back together like puzzle pieces. Obviously the adhesives exist to stick damn near anything to anything else. as long as its flat and true and stabilized and well-supported it'll probably stay intact forever and may have been cracked forever.
DEEREMEYER1 Why do idiots who have absolutely zero knowledge about things always feel the need to speak about them? For anyone else who come across this video and is reading these posts, even the most cursory search on what igneous rock is will show that DEERMEYER1 is more full of shit than a dairy farm.
Stan had a horse that was 18 hands?!!! That's six-feet tall at the shoulder. BIG horse! Very interesting video, Tom. Re-calibrating a surface plate is a fascinating process. Thanks for sharing!
+Richard Freeze Well Tom now I know you've done the math already. .. 1 hand = 4". It's literally the average width of a human hand, same imperial source as the foot..
Shadon HKW Just in the past few days I saw a picture of a Percheron that was 19 hands He was a beautiful animal but huge, and that image came to mind when I saw the remark about your horse. I can easily imagine that you would need a leg up on the gate to get aboard your 17 hands mare. Share some photos of her. We'd love to see her.
Hey Tom, I have the same model autocollimator (with the same light mod ha ha), they're not as expensive as you might think, and a bit of shopping around can get one for what I think is a good price. The guy is quite right about the 90 degree eyepiece however; impossible to find! It was interesting to see them split the plate, as they split the lines in half instead of using a second mirror. The Rahn repeat-o-meters are typically expensive and now you see how they're made, somewhat pointless for many applications. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to make one up, as he said, they're just a height gauge with an oversized gauge block. Thanks for sharing that, very cool to see some pros at work, and it sounds as if the price is right up there.
Fascinating episode, Tom. I started out in hobby machining because of my interest in making my own telescopes, and the mirrors had to be ground and figured to within 0.25 of a wavelength of light (~125 nanometers). I built my own Foucault knife edge tester (wikipedia has a good article on them) and used it to test my mirrors. I've always gotten jazzed about super precision stuff! Thanks for posting this, it was great!
Nice to see how this was done. Randy and I took our plates over to Bob Korves over in Sac, and had ours done. Maybe by these same guy's. We were to meet at a certain time, and they got there early and were finished by the time we were to meet them. So yes they were fast. Kinda bummed that I missed the process. Thanks for making the video Tom! Razor!
Wow, I would have thought it would be. "It;s out, we need to take it back to shop for resurfacing" You did not say how much. I had assumed even a 12x18 plate would take hours so the cost would only be for high-dollar production shops. Thanks for the great vid. Those guys make it seem so simple. ;)
Wow, I learned so much from watching this! And the tech is so assured- his manner is as precise as his work. Manny didn't say much but I bet he's nearly as well-versed.
Tom, that was a great video. I had the same impression you did before seeing it done in the video. Figured they would work on small areas, measure and repeat until they had it flat, similar to scraping ways. So there's three items for the tool acquisition list.
Great video and thanks for sharing and same goes for the crew letting you film/ask questions etc. I'm pretty sure that there's another video floating around with this guy in it at their shop.It's been a while but I recall him pulling out the old 40's era gear to double check the laser they use.Seems like they've worked a lot together and make a nice crew too.
I'm with you --- I found this fascinating. I have no use for this knowledge but, I love learning so, I watched this from end to end. Thank you for making this video.
That is amazing. Thanks a lot for sharing this and what surprised me the most is the fact that the laps they use are smaller than the actual surface plate, I always thought that in order to lap something correctly you need to have a bigger lap than your part.
This is why I love this channel... where else are you gonna see something like this? The problem is that now I want my own lapping set up! Very cool stuff.
i'd love to see your shop tom, I used to work at myfords, noticed the grinder in the background..i have to make do with an old cast iron plate ..interesting to watch the boys that know how thanks
Really enjoy this vid Tom. It was a real eye opener for me. This is my second time through seeing it. I met Mike and John at the tour put on by Stan this summer and they were wonderful guys, so generous w their knowledge and their time. Keep up the great vids.
Very cool to see precision being made right there in the field. Gotta say, though, if I had to hear that lapping plate all day, my teeth would evacuate my head!
Fascinating! When I first started watching, I said to myself, "There is no way I am watching this all the way through." Now 33+ minutes later, here I am. Oh, yea I had two rewind a few times to catch the good parts. Haha! O.C.D.
I just bought a used Standridge surface plate in the Burbank CA area and wonder if these very guys calibrated it... last done in 2013! I'm also into telescopes and use a autocollimator to align the mirrors, hmm. There also appears to be similarities in how they flatten the plates and how telescope mirrors are made. Interesting!
Great video. It compliments Stan's tour nicely. Interesting talk about how finishing your tool corrects their equipment. I think I have some reading to do. And here's hoping I can convince my employer to get me a small block for some paper lapping.
That was extremely interesting. I worked with stone for about the last 20 years I was in the construction biz; I could have saved a lot of time using diamond powder. Would have cut into my earnings, due to the cost, I'm sure. Also, about 4 years ago, a friend of mine, who was a metrological engineer died, and I ended up with a lot of metrology stuff of his. About 30-40% of it, I have no idea what it was used for. I have a much better clue about some of it, now. One item, looks a lot like the 'telescope' part of the autocollimator, but is closer to 3" diameter. From the one guy's description, it may be a big brother. It has lines on it, like he was describing. Your vid has motivated me to finally do something with the room full of stuff I got. Thanks...
And here I thought I was going to be bored to death watching this. I'm actually quite surprised and impressed that the process was so seemingly simple and not complex. I was expecting the plate to have to go onto a giant, multi-wheel, lapping/polishing machine. Very Interesting indeed !
Had no idea that could be done in the field. But I guess it's better to do in the exact place that the surface plate will be used. Thank you for sharing. GW
In the mid-60's I was on a Polaris Submarine repair ship and I worked in the Fleet Mechanical Calibration Lab. We had 2 black granite surface plates a 4'X8' and a 2'X4', we calibrated our own using a procedure from Metrology Engineering Center in Pomona, Calif. we measured every inch and plotted it using a Davidson D638 autocollimator and a precision front surface mirror. It would take as about 2 days to shoot the big plate and about a half day to shoot the small plate. Then we would enter all these measurements into a Frieden mechanical calculator and it would set and crank out for about 8hrs to give us our high and low spots as I remember it was a AAA plate but we used it for everything from a bed to ironing our uniforms on. It was mainly used to calibrate all the optical equipment we serviced, when I went back in the Navy in the early 70's nearly all the optical stuff had been replaced by electronic equipment. I really loved working on and calibration optical instruments. Those days are long gone.
Tres Å? Wow. Bueno.
You watch one video on surface plates... and now the algorithm's got you.
still true as of today. done the wormhole i go
I like that guy, you can tell he loves his job, which is something I always like in people.
Ya... but I think that guy who empties the port-o-lets likes his job a bit too much for my liking.
What if your job is the guy who injects baby bunny rabbits with poison? Would you like that guy if he whistled through his shift with a smile ? ?
I’m a hitman, I love my job. You love me too?
The dude has skinny arms. The Mexican guy does all the work and the skinny guy takes all the credit.
@@noeraldinkabam would you be willing to take apprentices?
The kindness of the field techs walking us through the process... thumbs up! Thanks Ox!
Wow what a treat! How many of us would ever have seen this on our own. Thanks for sharing Tom!
I was surprised at the simple equipment too. You can tell those guys have a solid understanding of the concepts, and are not just following steps.
+Bill De La Vega It's actually a very simple thing to do. I mean, people make telescope lenses/mirrors at home with similar (yet applied to the world of glass) methods and devices. I can totally see something like this done by someone with the tools and patience required.
I remember reading about a guy who made a 60 cm mirror and had it checked and he was within PRO levels of accuracy.
But yeah, those two are very adept at what they are doing, also, well oiled teamwork.
+aserta
Yeah, I have also been fascinated by telescope mirror making.
Technically grinding and polishing a telescope mirror looks quite alike and simple. However the accuracy of the parabolic mirror has to be within 1/8 of the wavelength of visible light, about 2,7 millions of an inch.
While polishing looks simple, getting it right is actually hard to do. Even the
experienced amateur mirror makers often have to take several attempts. It is not like dusting the high spots down using a surface grinder. The motion of the lap is the key. The pattern the lap is moved by, whether in strokes, ovals, swirls and with which overlap: all influences how and where material removed.
+Strax Gasser Yeah people hand lap telescope mirrors to within millionths of an inch of parabola.
And thus begins my descent into the youtube black hole of telescope mirror lapping haha
Giuliano's Things
I've been there. It's nice.
Tom, thanks for sharing this with us! The process of flattening granite surface plates isn't seen often by machinists. I saw the tail end of a calibration about 30 years ago but that's all. Funny story - when I first began working in the engineering department where I'm working now (25 years ago) I found under a huge pile of junk, a pink granite surface plate , a monster size 6 foot by 10 foot. After I cleared it off and tried cleaning it, I found globs of hardened epoxy all over it's surface! It turns out that a bunch of students were using it to make composite panels on it! That stone must have cost 10's of thousands of dollars and was used as a table! We have since gotten rid of it and I replaced it with a 4 x 4 foot pink stone that I use to set up fixturing for my new wire EDM.
AAH!!! the money that schools spend is indeed staggering, the mistreatment of what is purchased is even more staggering!!
Great to see folks who are enthusiastic about their work, happy to be filmed, and happy to explain for everyone even though they probably weren't expecting it. It says great things about the company and the professionalism. Big thumbs up to Precision Granite for this (and you of course Tom!)
25+ years in manufacturing and I have never seen this done. Thank you so much for posting this video. It's not at all what I had imagined. Great stuff!!
Man, I've watched this like 3 times over the last few years, and it's still as entertaining as the first time I saw it. You can really tell these guys love what they do. Love how they took time to educate you and us. Thanks again Tom!
I'm coming into contact with precision plates for the first time and this is completely blowing my mind! I love how so many precise things come from such a simple tool... a surface!
Man, I'm a geomatics engineer (formerly know as a survey engineer) and these guys are talking about 1/4 second precision and all that, that's incredible! You've got to have some pretty fancy equipment to reach that precision, I'm gaining some new appreciation for the measurement precision needed in machining.
Interesting work. It was nice that the guy was into talking about what he was doing and let you video it for us. That story about the lady who only wanted the B certification was hilarious.
+ILGopher yes it was. But you run across those people everywhere in every field.
We once had a customer complain to us that the picture on her new computer looked to good...
+ILGopher Good kid, excellent customer service skills combined with great technical aptitude=fine employee. It was nice to see he is passionate about his job also, which I thought was shown by his comment about being grateful for Tom's interest and participation in the process.
Great video and I hope everyone is doing well, Aloha...Chuck
+ILGopher I understand the desire for B certification. It's like buying a car and worrying about the first scratch. I usually just give the bumper a little ding myself so I stop worrying.
+Knolltop Farms Agreed. His commentary was excellent. It made all the difference in understanding what we were watching.
very cool to see, and yeah that was far less involved than i would imagine.
Just bought a small lathe and came here looking for machine tips and setup etc. Half and hour later and I am absorbed in surface calibration.
Awesome vid! It was great to see someone so passionate about his work. He should really be working for himself. Only a good tradesman invites observation and inspection.
+Micky c Hi Micky,
Thanks for the comment.
Cheers,
Tom
It's nice to see such a young guy getting into this kind of old-school technical work. Hopefully they'll be able to keep the skills alive!
I used to hear legends about guys like these in my shop days and it's funny to have RUclips now, and see the guys doing it. They weren't even born when I was in high school.
"Under promise, over deliver." Really cool video!!
Hey Hugh,
Hard to complain about that right. Thanks for the comment.
Cheers,
Tom
I ran a calibration lab in the UK 🇬🇧. And now 3 of my 4 children work in the same field. It brought back some memories of working on site.
Particularly enjoyed this video Tom. These guys obviously know their stuff. It's always good to see professionals doing their thing. Thanks.
Yet another job I can add to the list of "careers I had no idea existed".
You can't tell me you've never heard of Rick Sanchez...
@Robert Slackware that's what he was showing with them "charging" the plate with diamond. They put either a very thin coating of wet diamond lapping paste, or dry diamond lapping powder on the roller, and then roll it into the plate. Because the diamond is obviously harder than the cast iron plate, much of it embeds into the cast iron.
i recently took an interest in reconditioning and collecting tools. even ones i wont ever actually use. understanding how they work is so fascinating in the respects that the thinking and evolution that have gone into making them tools blows my mind. recently i brought a double sided diamond lap from faithfull tools and when i started using it for sharping wood chisels and plain irons i quickly realized that a flat surface is imperative for a keen edge. ive even used the lap to flatten my polishing stones and used them on the plane irons. so far the shaveings have come off the wood at 3 thou or less. never underestimate the value of a good flat serface.
"your granites are actually improving my laps" OK then let's just do a contra, you don't bill me, I won't bill you. hahaha
I have avoided this video for months thinking , '"how boring". RUclips has been trying for months to get me to watch it as a top level recommendation. Today I ran out of stuff I wanted to watch. So, here I am. Great video Tom, I learned a bunch and no longer intimidated by the prospect of buying a used granite. I would love to know how much three pieces cost to re-certify and/or lap.
I have read about the process of reconditioning plates but there's nothing like seeing it actually done. Thanks for the video!
Tom, you blew my mind with this one. Never have I seen this process, and its amazing how (relatively - given that young guys expertise) simple it was.... I'm still digesting this video. Absolutely useful.... Thanks a million, Daniel.
Great video! I'm a metrologist for the DOD...good memories of using the auto-collimator /w mirrors to cal rocks. We now use electronic leveling heads...not as glamorous as the optical way. Very, very cool vid. We have that same H/W collimator on the shelf...it's a beaut.
+Michael Dodge Hi Michael,
I am fond of Hilger Watts equipment. I have a level that has a bakelite case lined with leather. Every time I open it up it smells like instruments and precision. Thanks for the comment.
Cheers,
Tom
I always look forward to Standridge coming out. I run a flat lapping company and when they are here I get to really geek out about flatness!
Hello Andy. My name is Len. Been watching your videos for the last few months. Just want to tell you that where you are is beatable. I know because I have been there for both treatments and today have a quality of life second to none. Your will be back in the tractor for planting.
Absolutely fascinating. A recently deceased neighbour was a metrologist before he retired, you should see his kit.
As an ex glazier and amateur optician I love to see this kind of absolute accuracy. I have a couple of Hilger & Watts diffraction gratings and a clinometer, fine tools.
So the standard of standards all boils down to rubbing two flat surfaces ... awe hell ... as complicated as measuring some machining surfaces can get, in contrast it seems so stone-age simple to get it there. It all goes back to rubbing two rocks together. Thanks for giving us a look at the process!
Jordan Rodrigues Yes three al la Whitworth, if any two will mate all three are flat.
True flatness requires three plates. And they must be rotated both in the horizontal and end over end. Otherwise twist can be introduced.
@Jordan Rodrigues hehehehe!
Excellent Tom. As said this is something that not a lot of home machinists would ever see. regards from the UK.
Hi Tom! For me, this qualifies as the top most informative video of the year! My wife and I both found it fascinating. The tech guy was speaking so fast, I had to rewind and listen more closely. Many thanks for sharing this info which I had never seen or read about anywhere else. Daniel
This was super fun to watch. It's always cool to see a professional explain the process too.
I've seen this done once, a few years back.
I do recall seeing a repeat-o-meter used, but instead of lasers or an autocollimator, they used some other device. I recall it squeaking against the palate. I was too busy working to get what was going on, unfortunately.
Cool process, same realm as hand scrapping. Very neat video!
Tom,
Awesome video!
I've always been mystified about how such a precision piece of equipment could be so relatively inexpensive to purchase. Now it all makes sense!
I started watching your videos for the machining, but you've made me really love the theory and practice behind inspection and metrology. Thanks Tom!
Very cool Tom. Understanding the details really reveals the magic of the simplicity of thinking the methods through. Almost too simple.
That's a bunch of granite that is super smooth and super flat. Amazing to see such unique things.
I keep coming back to this. Foundational for precision and super interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Wish I had 50 millionths of this dude's energy
This was quite interesting and entertaining, thanks for the upload and also to the nice guys from the company for taking their time, explaining stuff and letting you have a look. This would almost never be possible here in Germany. We might do it as thorough as these guys, but you wouldn't get that nice of a chat out of it as time is precious and the guys have to be hyper-efficient and customer-chat is a "waste of time".
It's funny that he's providing you with a free "upgrade" on the surface quality. This reminds me of Thyssen Krupp steel works, where TK used to make different grades of steel. Automobile industry always did order grade B but they always got grade A, as it was too costly for TK to downgrade their production processes. When the Chinese started to buy almost all of the scrap metal on the planet it became too costly to uphold the grade-A-process for TK an they startet to do grade B for the automobile industry. The industry then complained about the bad quality, but that's what they were paying for in the fist place. They never even realized that initially their orders were much higher steel quality.
So this guy is doing it right: he tells you what you're paying for, but he also tells you what you get, so you can appreciate it. That's were TK got it wrong (Germans are not that good in communication with customers and proper advertising... :) ).
Thanks for your videos and your effort you put in them! Keep it up! Cheers from good ol' Germany
Alex
+0Fidel0 Hi Alex,
Thanks for the interesting story about the riddle of German steel. These guys were very generous with their time and expertise. Hopefully this video will make up for the loss in efficiency. Thanks for the comment.
Cheers,
Tom
Good to see the boys out in the field doing their thing.
Ancient video but awesome. Having surface plates so accurate gives you the ability to do precision machining that is hard for me to imagine as a hobbyiest
Excellent video Tom! Never seen how this was done and am glad I could see it. The whole process seems so simple but that's what professionals do.....make it look easy.
I haven't seen this done optically before. The companies I've used have always used precision electronic levels. I liked the comment about the work improving the lapping equipment. I've been told that some manufacturers make surface plates / tables in pairs, using each to simultaneously lap the other.
Used to work around a place that made Blade Rotor parts for the Black Hawk, they used a 8 ft by 10 ft inspection table, with a computer controlled touch system on a arm, used to sit and watch that machine do its thing. Truly amazing work.
Love to see that Myford behind you . They were made about 4 miles from my home in Nottingham. Long gone now I'm afraid.
Sorry I don't know the main tech's name, but it's really amazing to see someone that knowledgeable doing something like this. So many technical "professionals" learn how to read the dials, and not much more. This guy knows what his instruments are doing, how to use them, and exactly what the results mean. Bravo.
+Rob Swider Hi Rob,
That would be Mike from Standridge. He has done this a few times I'm thinking. Thanks for the comment.
Cheers,
Tom
Simply fascinating that you do not see very often. I learned something new today thanks to you, Tom. Much appreciated.
Very impressive craftsmanship. I’ll watch this a few more times.
Closest work I've ever had to do was on seamless can tooling ( carbide and ceramic punches ) the profile on beer and soda cans ( OD/ID grinding ) all had to fall within 50 mill.
Very interesting video. I never new how much accuracy those granite lumps of rock could be honed down to. I notice you also have a Myford machine behind the big surface plate. Myford were still going until they went into liquidation in 2011 and all the stock was sold. Very sad but another company have taken over the production of new Myford Super 7 lathe which is a highly respected small lathe for hobbyists and smaller engineering establishments. They also still produce many accessories for Myford lathes. Many budding engineers got their first training on those beautiful little machines which were highly respected and still are. You can still buy a new one for about $10 000. They also refurbish used Myfords which are still in high demand in the UK.
ahh that sound of the lapping iron working over the granite is so satisfying...
Killer stuff, I work for Newport Corp and we deal a lot with high precision flats, always fun to see them calibrated.
Very cool Tom! I remember seeing the surface plates and inspection tables being calibrated when I worked at Nook Industries.
Hi Tom, what a treat, and as my physics teacher said 'Keep it short and simple', nothing works in this world that is not related to physics!!!!
Really enjoy your videos (including the physics stuff) regards. Joe
Great video. I had no idea how they checked or finished a surface plate.
Hi Tom. In previous videos, I thought your middle size granite had a wear mark or scratch on it, about a quarter way from the right side. We see the line at 25:25. But after this video we can see it a natural line in the granite, it's amazing to see how nature made that almost straight line in stone.
+John C Hi John,
Its just a line of lighter colored granite in the plate. Another person thought it was a crack. I never really noticed it until they lapped off the dirty couple of tenths of surface. Thanks for the comment.
Cheers,
Tom
It's not a straight line. It may look straight and be fairly straigh but what you know what they say about straight lines in "nature". There are no straight faults in stone and the plate was probably broken at some point and was repaired or it was flawed from day one and hasn't broken completely. Granite itself is nothing but small rocks stuck together by dried mud more or less. And a lot of "granite" if not most these days is synthetic anyway. They call it "engineered stone". You don't think natural granite REALLY comes in all those colors for countertops and there's a thousand quarries out there full of it, do you? Granite is "stone" and "stone" is a composite. Rock is monolithic. The composite nature of granite and the fact that its basically lots of pebbles and fragments in a "cement" binder is what allows it to expand and contract and "breathe" without breaking. It has no grain so when it does crack its not along a straight line or across a grain the way rock breaks and in the process distorts and springs and is impossible to get back in one piece. Granite will break along a "fault line" and through the "cement" but the pebbles and fragments of rock should fit right back together like puzzle pieces. Obviously the adhesives exist to stick damn near anything to anything else. as long as its flat and true and stabilized and well-supported it'll probably stay intact forever and may have been cracked forever.
DEEREMEYER1 Why do idiots who have absolutely zero knowledge about things always feel the need to speak about them? For anyone else who come across this video and is reading these posts, even the most cursory search on what igneous rock is will show that DEERMEYER1 is more full of shit than a dairy farm.
Stan had a horse that was 18 hands?!!! That's six-feet tall at the shoulder. BIG horse!
Very interesting video, Tom. Re-calibrating a surface plate is a fascinating process. Thanks for sharing!
+Richard Freeze Well Tom now I know you've done the math already. .. 1 hand = 4". It's literally the average width of a human hand, same imperial source as the foot..
+Richard Freeze Actually she was only 17, but still a big un :) Even I had to use a corral gate to get mounted up, and I'm no pipsqueak.
Shadon HKW Just in the past few days I saw a picture of a Percheron that was 19 hands He was a beautiful animal but huge, and that image came to mind when I saw the remark about your horse.
I can easily imagine that you would need a leg up on the gate to get aboard your 17 hands mare. Share some photos of her. We'd love to see her.
Hey Tom, I have the same model autocollimator (with the same light mod ha ha), they're not as expensive as you might think, and a bit of shopping around can get one for what I think is a good price. The guy is quite right about the 90 degree eyepiece however; impossible to find!
It was interesting to see them split the plate, as they split the lines in half instead of using a second mirror. The Rahn repeat-o-meters are typically expensive and now you see how they're made, somewhat pointless for many applications. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to make one up, as he said, they're just a height gauge with an oversized gauge block.
Thanks for sharing that, very cool to see some pros at work, and it sounds as if the price is right up there.
This was a nice video. Great to see a young person who takes such pride in his work. Very knowledgeable technician.
Fascinating episode, Tom. I started out in hobby machining because of my interest in making my own telescopes, and the mirrors had to be ground and figured to within 0.25 of a wavelength of light (~125 nanometers). I built my own Foucault knife edge tester (wikipedia has a good article on them) and used it to test my mirrors. I've always gotten jazzed about super precision stuff!
Thanks for posting this, it was great!
Muito bom, Brasil.
Love this kind of stuff! Machining and metrology go hand in hand. Big respect to all the smart people solving problems in machine shops.
Nice to see how this was done. Randy and I took our plates over to Bob Korves over in Sac, and had ours done. Maybe by these same guy's. We were to meet at a certain time, and they got there early and were finished by the time we were to meet them. So yes they were fast. Kinda bummed that I missed the process. Thanks for making the video Tom! Razor!
Really fascinating stuff. It's wonderful to see real specialist people working like this.
Thanks Tom, that was very interesting. Nice to hear the one tool was from the forties and made in England.
Mart.
Blimey!!! We need more of these sanding guys in South Africa. Guy is enthusiatic.
Wow that is a specialist job, bet you wouldnt be able to get that done in New Zealand, lovely to watch
i find it wierdly facinating. almost mesmerizing watching this! could you perhaps do some more videos on the do's and don'ts of lapping please?
+Claes Wikberg Hi Claes,
We will be doing some in upcoming videos. Cylindrical and flat lapping. Thanks for the comment.
Cheers,
Tom
Wow, I would have thought it would be. "It;s out, we need to take it back to shop for resurfacing"
You did not say how much. I had assumed even a 12x18 plate would take hours so the cost would only be for high-dollar production shops.
Thanks for the great vid. Those guys make it seem so simple. ;)
Wow, I learned so much from watching this! And the tech is so assured- his manner is as precise as his work. Manny didn't say much but I bet he's nearly as well-versed.
Tom, that was a great video. I had the same impression you did before seeing it done in the video. Figured they would work on small areas, measure and repeat until they had it flat, similar to scraping ways. So there's three items for the tool acquisition list.
I had no idea that it was such a "simple" job.
Thanks for sharing Tom.
Learned something new.
+Jan Visser Hi JAn,
Impressive in its simplicity. Thanks for the comment.
Cheers,
Tom
Great video and thanks for sharing and same goes for the crew letting you film/ask questions etc.
I'm pretty sure that there's another video floating around with this guy in it at their shop.It's been a while but I recall him pulling out the old 40's era gear to double check the laser they use.Seems like they've worked a lot together and make a nice crew too.
calibration guys are always the nicest people, they have to put up with so much weird stuff too.
I'm with you --- I found this fascinating. I have no use for this knowledge but, I love learning so, I watched this from end to end.
Thank you for making this video.
Very neat video. I love to see people that love doing what they do and are so good at it!
That is amazing. Thanks a lot for sharing this and what surprised me the most is the fact that the laps they use are smaller than the actual surface plate, I always thought that in order to lap something correctly you need to have a bigger lap than your part.
This is why I love this channel... where else are you gonna see something like this? The problem is that now I want my own lapping set up! Very cool stuff.
i'd love to see your shop tom, I used to work at myfords, noticed the grinder in the background..i have to make do with an old cast iron plate ..interesting to watch the boys that know how thanks
truly amazing to watch thanks tom and the guys who sorted your grant
Just watched all your lapping vids plus this one... FASCINATING!!! Thank you for capturing this.
awesome tom. its just amazing the simplicity of the tools to do that job.
the guy knows his stuff and that is just as awesome!!!
Nice to know how this is done. I too, expected some elaborate process. It's all in the knowing. Thanks for sharing.
I got an 2x3 plate last summer. At some point, I'll be doing this too.
Thanks for giving us a blow by blow. That was very cool.
Really enjoy this vid Tom. It was a real eye opener for me. This is my second time through seeing it. I met Mike and John at the tour put on by Stan this summer and they were wonderful guys, so generous w their knowledge and their time. Keep up the great vids.
A rock-solid video that did much more than skim the surface of a monumental subject!!
As usual, I watched and learnt.
Very cool to see precision being made right there in the field. Gotta say, though, if I had to hear that lapping plate all day, my teeth would evacuate my head!
Fascinating to watch. Thanks you for uploading this (and the inspection company for letting you film it)
Fascinating! When I first started watching, I said to myself, "There is no way I am watching this all the way through." Now 33+ minutes later, here I am. Oh, yea I had two rewind a few times to catch the good parts. Haha! O.C.D.
I just bought a used Standridge surface plate in the Burbank CA area and wonder if these very guys calibrated it... last done in 2013! I'm also into telescopes and use a autocollimator to align the mirrors, hmm. There also appears to be similarities in how they flatten the plates and how telescope mirrors are made. Interesting!
Great video. It compliments Stan's tour nicely. Interesting talk about how finishing your tool corrects their equipment. I think I have some reading to do. And here's hoping I can convince my employer to get me a small block for some paper lapping.
That was extremely interesting. I worked with stone for about the last 20 years I was in the construction biz; I could have saved a lot of time using diamond powder. Would have cut into my earnings, due to the cost, I'm sure.
Also, about 4 years ago, a friend of mine, who was a metrological engineer died, and I ended up with a lot of metrology stuff of his. About 30-40% of it, I have no idea what it was used for. I have a much better clue about some of it, now.
One item, looks a lot like the 'telescope' part of the autocollimator, but is closer to 3" diameter. From the one guy's description, it may be a big brother. It has lines on it, like he was describing.
Your vid has motivated me to finally do something with the room full of stuff I got.
Thanks...
You should man, great you started looking it up!
Regarding the diamonds, its probably synthetic and not as expensive as you might think
I like how the work the tool makes the tools better. The scope was twice as old as the tech using it.
that was a great video. never knew tools like the ones the techs use existed. allways good to learn new things and to see older tools in use.
And here I thought I was going to be bored to death watching this. I'm actually quite surprised and impressed that the process was so seemingly simple and not complex.
I was expecting the plate to have to go onto a giant, multi-wheel, lapping/polishing machine. Very Interesting indeed !
Cool video Tom, glad you need to get flat so we could see this process in action, quite interesting and the low tech in itself was a surprise.
Had no idea that could be done in the field. But I guess it's better to do in the exact place that the surface plate will be used. Thank you for sharing. GW
Great video. Unbelievable that degree of accuracy can be obtained with 1940's technology and hand tools.
Try the 1830’s and a guy named Whitworth, read up on him and prepare to be doubly impressed.
Absolutely fascinating! I loved every second of that. Listening to that guy talk, you can tell he really loves his job.
Awesome stuff, Tom.