- Joined
- May 3, 2020
- Messages
- 316
I bought this Brunswick bench centers last year. Finally got around to fixing it up.
It was an iterative process but eventually I secured 2 gage pins into the Vs with tape and used them to scrape the pads for alignment in all directions. Unfortunately I didn't have 2 of the same size pin, so i had to keep track of which pin was where. Copious notes were needed because I live a life of interruptions. Note the lettering system for the many (20) pads.
Now everything is within a 1/10th except the V is not quite centered when I lay out on its side. The original spec was 0.000,2" over 12" so it's officially good enough.
I think I paid too much for this set of bench centers because it was fairly battered and needed a lot of work. I'll call it educational, to justify the purchase after the fact.
It is a neat unit though, with all orientations and sine-bar function built in. The small pads is a clever manufacturing trick because it minimizes machine work and grinding. A lot of bench centers have a mounting point for an indicator. This model has a 1/4-20 hole. I thought of using a small Noga arm but I'll need to make a stud with 6mm on one end to make that work. Normally I use it on the surface plate so I might never need to mount an indicator directly.
I think a wood box is the next step. Perhaps western red cedar.
It was an iterative process but eventually I secured 2 gage pins into the Vs with tape and used them to scrape the pads for alignment in all directions. Unfortunately I didn't have 2 of the same size pin, so i had to keep track of which pin was where. Copious notes were needed because I live a life of interruptions. Note the lettering system for the many (20) pads.
Now everything is within a 1/10th except the V is not quite centered when I lay out on its side. The original spec was 0.000,2" over 12" so it's officially good enough.
I think I paid too much for this set of bench centers because it was fairly battered and needed a lot of work. I'll call it educational, to justify the purchase after the fact.
It is a neat unit though, with all orientations and sine-bar function built in. The small pads is a clever manufacturing trick because it minimizes machine work and grinding. A lot of bench centers have a mounting point for an indicator. This model has a 1/4-20 hole. I thought of using a small Noga arm but I'll need to make a stud with 6mm on one end to make that work. Normally I use it on the surface plate so I might never need to mount an indicator directly.
I think a wood box is the next step. Perhaps western red cedar.
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