# Pratt & Whitney Master Level



## chevydyl (Feb 1, 2016)

I scored this off ebay last week, original box, 125 dollars shipped, great deal. it has the PO number engraved into the hinge of the box, kind of neat, somewhere along its life someone scraped the bottom, well they didn't scrape it in rather just put a pattern on it the full length, I am however going to clean it up and scrape it in fully. there are some scratches I want to alleviate. The plastic handles are both broken, which I believe are bakelite? I will probably machine new ones out of black delrin unless someone else can suggest what would work better, something that may polish to the shine they have now. It levels out pretty good doing the endo. when I took it out of the shipping container and let it settle the bubble shrunk about 2 divisions, and when level the ends of the bubble just kiss the lines.


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## Bob Korves (Feb 1, 2016)

I don't quite understand the second photo from the top.  It looks like there are two tooled surfaces there, the upper one decorated and the lower one scraped and flaked.  I am guessing the lower one is maybe a straightedge you are going to use to scrape in the upper one (which is the level?).  Is that what I am seeing there?


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## eugene13 (Feb 1, 2016)

A real treasure


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## Uglydog (Feb 1, 2016)

Bob Korves said:


> I don't quite understand the second photo from the top.  It looks like there are two tooled surfaces there, the upper one decorated and the lower one scraped and flaked.  I am guessing the lower one is maybe a straightedge you are going to use to scrape in the upper one (which is the level?).  Is that what I am seeing there?



Bob, it looks like somebody scraped the side of his surface plate.
The level is laying on it's side near the edge of the plate.

Daryl
MN


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## Bob Korves (Feb 1, 2016)

Uglydog said:


> Bob, it looks like somebody scraped the side of his surface plate.
> The level is laying on it's side near the edge of the plate.
> 
> Daryl
> MN


OK, I get it, It is the lapping plate in the top picture...  Weird, I was wondering why someone would flake a straightedge.  Must be a practice surface.  Thanks, Daryl!


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## chevydyl (Feb 1, 2016)

The second photo shows the bottom of the PW level on top of my cast iron lap, the lap is hand scraped and hand flaked, which is the bottom, the upper surface is the level bottom or base, which a previous owner put a flake pattern on it, I wasn't showing the lap for any comparative reason I just happen to take the pictures with it present. I have not spotted the level yet but I'm sure it's not perfectly flat based on about an inch of the flake pattern missing from one end, if you hold it right in the light you can faintly see the flakes. There is a long scratch on the level base that I want gone as well as a bunch of other small scratches, I will probably end up fully restoring it, not totally original because I'm going to grind some surfaces to get rid of am engraving, all exposed surfaces will be ground instead of milled finish, the base will be pinpoint scraped. The paint is kind of an olive greenish gray, I will try and duplicate it as best I can, I thought about doing wrinkle paint but I think I will stick to original color.
Any thoughts on the plastic to use to make the new handles? I would like to be able to Polish it to shine like the originals

And yes the lapping plate edges were all scraped flat and then flaked for practice, the 3 feet on the lap base are also flat and flaked, purely decorative, plus I was honing a technique for half moons. The lap top is ground and my tool broke while cutting the pattern so I have to wait for the replacement to arrive then run the program again from line 330 lol
After the cross hatch is done it will get re-ground super flat, when I first started I ground both sides then rough scraped one side, and spotted it on a brand new grade A standridge plate, it hit on every unground spot, telling me my harig 612 is in great condition (factory scrape marks visable on all ways)


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