Coaxial Indicator - First Job

Nice job, I have never used a coax indicator, is it better or faster than a edge finder along with X-Y DRO? Sound like yet another item to add to the wish list.
I am guessing when you indicated in the second side you just added a 1/8 shim between the boring bar and already bored hole?
 
gard said:
Nice job, I have never used a coax indicator, is it better or faster than a edge finder along with X-Y DRO? Sound like yet another item to add to the wish list.
I am guessing when you indicated in the second side you just added a 1/8 shim between the boring bar and already bored hole?
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The coax indicator is a 100X faster than an edge finder, at least for me. In a bored hole the edge finder is affected by the radius of the hole which is not unsurmountable but is another place to inject error. As the coax indicator is spinning just fiddle with X&Y feeds until the needle stay on zero. It just takes a minute or two. Good call on your part but I didn't use a shim with the boring bar setup. (that pesky radius again) On the first hole I just used the bungee to hold the bar against both holes. When I bored the first hole I left 1.25" untouched at the bottom of the bore to keep the boring bar vertical when doing the second setup. When I bored the second hole I was also able to reach deep enough to remove the 1.25" left in the first bore. I would have been nice to bore the entirety of both holes from one side but I just couldn't reach deep enough.
 
The thing the coax has over all other indicators is the dial always faces forward. Edge finders etc you often have to look around them to read them, not the coax.
 
The coaxial indicator is a beautiful invention…Mr. Coax outdid himself. The main setup issue I have is that there is a kind of cone of effectiveness, bigger downward, and sometimes for bigger diameter holes the stock tips don’t work, because they are too short. So I’ve had to make up several rods and bend them to fit each application. Anybody ever solve this more elegantly? If so, I would like to pirate your solution.
 
So can the coax indicator also be used as an edge finder on a straight surface or traming in a vise? Would that be with the motor off?
How about traming a mill head to a table? Or is it used mostly to find hole centers? You can probably guess I have seen them in catalogs but never in person.
 
gard said:
So can the coax indicator also be used as an edge finder on a straight surface or traming in a vise? Would that be with the motor off?
How about traming a mill head to a table? Or is it used mostly to find hole centers? You can probably guess I have seen them in catalogs but never in person.
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I’ve never even thought about using my coax for edge finding or tramming a vise but I it could be used like that. I don’t use the motor when I use my coax I just spin by hand because the pulley on my mill drill is easy to grab. The only thing is it doesn’t read in .0005, only .001 so it’s not as sensitive as my test indicator. It doesn’t seem suited for doing mill head tram as it’s not made for reading at horizontal like a DTI on an arm is. Something to think about though.
 
gard said:
So can the coax indicator also be used as an edge finder on a straight surface or traming in a vise? Would that be with the motor off?
How about traming a mill head to a table? Or is it used mostly to find hole centers? You can probably guess I have seen them in catalogs but never in person.
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Some of the old salts on here may be able to come up with a way to use a coax ind. to edge find a straight surface but I'm gonna go with "NO". You'd have to lock the quill and lock the indicator as well basically turning it into a DI or DTI which is what you should have been using in the first place. As far as tramming, you have to remember that what you read on the COAX dial is not an absolute reading but just a relative reading with respect to the other parts of the circle. What shows as .001" on the dial could actually be more or less depending on the length of the arm you're using. Even if you determine you're out of tram you still don't know how much you need to shim. The COAX indicator is an awesome tool when used for it's intended purpose.
 
Where are you buy these for 80.00? I've dreamed of having one, but to costly.
 
solo said:
Where are you buy these for 80.00? I've dreamed of having one, but to costly.
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The Shars one is $86 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/SHARS-Co-Axi...=coaxial+indicator&qid=1673548863&sr=8-3&th=1

HFS is the same: https://www.amazon.com/HFS-Coaxial-...5d-baed-4c5053c92e38&pd_rd_i=B0149F2BOO&psc=1

This no name one is sub-$80: https://www.amazon.com/Coaxial-Cent...mzn1.fos.18ed3cb5-28d5-4975-8bc7-93deae8f9840


The cheap ones seem to work well enough! I've had an HFS one and a Shars one and am happy with it.
 
Just curious.. For those of us with DRO, I've used it a couple of times to center X in a bore, then go to X0 and center Y, all with an edge finder. It seems to work well for the basic stuff I've done it on. I can then put a pin in the collet and it moves through the bore well. I compared it to a DTI on an arm and was within .002", which is plenty for those projects. Perhaps not as fast as a coax. And if I use a tenths indicator I can get it really close, but I don't often need that level of accuracy. I feel like I have to be missing something with these.
 
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