Low cost slim glass scale

[Paul Fithian]

OK, here's what these look like inside:

End caps on these are quite different than other glass scales like a ToAuto. This will require some machining and drilling of the extrusion for the end caps to fit:

It appears the glass is glued in. I'll try heating up the extrusion to see if it loosens up the adhesive, possibly a hot melt type used here? I think this adhesion is only needed for assembly, looks like the carriage for the read head supports the glass and the end caps/adhesive prevent fore/aft movement of the glass

 

[dabear3428]

OK, here's what these look like inside:
View attachment 487724

View attachment 487725

View attachment 487726

End caps on these are quite different than other glass scales like a ToAuto. This will require some machining and drilling of the extrusion for the end caps to fit:
View attachment 487727
View attachment 487728

It appears the glass is glued in. I'll try heating up the extrusion to see if it loosens up the adhesive, possibly a hot melt type used here? I think this adhesion is only needed for assembly, looks like the carriage for the read head supports the glass and the end caps/adhesive prevent fore/aft movement of the glass

yea i think i will use mine as is lol

 

[WobblyHand]

Mine was an RTV like glue. I thought about removing the glass and decided against it. Eventually used an end mill on the glass and housing. It worked fine, despite my wincing. I did stuff some clay in the ends for support of the glass, but I don't think it mattered. As long as the glass doesn't crack length wise, it won't matter how ugly it looks. So not elegant, but it works. My unit was on the cross slide so it did need to be shortened since there was a backsplash. I also needed to move the backsplash back about 2" to make it work.

 

[dabear3428]

Mine was an RTV like glue. I thought about removing the glass and decided against it. Eventually used an end mill on the glass and housing. It worked fine, despite my wincing. I did stuff some clay in the ends for support of the glass, but I don't think it mattered. As long as the glass doesn't crack length wise, it won't matter how ugly it looks. So not elegant, but it works. My unit was on the cross slide so it did need to be shortened since there was a backsplash. I also needed to move the backsplash back about 2" to make it work.

I'm using 3 of these and so far the x on my g0758 the unit i ordered fits perfectly out of the box, for the quill on the go758 i have to mount it on the side of the head and length is not an issue, on my 9X24 i'm using it on the cross slide and like you will need to move the backsplash back a few inches, i had already planed on doing that.

 

[ycroosh]

For cutting the scale to length, my plan is to remove the glass from the extrusion, cut the extrusion, score and snap the glass, and reassemble.

I’ll post some pictures when I do it

Unless you really know what you are doing, this is a really bad idea. You stand a good chance of damaging the encoder strip while remove it (I presume your is glued in, as it should be), and then you will need to glue it back in very precisely.

 

[ycroosh]

Mine was an RTV like glue. I thought about removing the glass and decided against it. Eventually used an end mill on the glass and housing. It worked fine, despite my wincing. I did stuff some clay in the ends for support of the glass, but I don't think it mattered. As long as the glass doesn't crack length wise, it won't matter how ugly it looks. So not elegant, but it works. My unit was on the cross slide so it did need to be shortened since there was a backsplash. I also needed to move the backsplash back about 2" to make it work.

You should see how some Chinese scales come from the factory In practice, the last 10mm or so don't matter anyway, and it's not that easy to break the glass strip length-vise, or even at an acute angle.

 

[WobblyHand]

You should see how some Chinese scales come from the factory In practice, the last 10mm or so don't matter anyway, and it's not that easy to break the glass strip length-vise, or even at an acute angle.

I totally agree with you. With some read heads, the last 25mm, or so, isn't used at all. The sensor pickups just don't travel to the ends.

So worrying about making it pretty, is well, nice, but not required at all. The end cap hides a whole lot of sins. Had I better access, I'd have scored the glass and made a nice break. But these small scales with the tilted glass inside aren't easy to access. So get out your hacksaws, bandsaws, end mills, whatever. If you can't stand the idea of doing that, (that was me once,) well you can always order to the correct size. Good luck with that though, at least the first time through, I got it wrong. Rather than waiting a long time, I just cut the scale myself. Didn't take all that long to do. Took way longer to convince myself to try it, than to do it and be done.

 

[Paul Fithian]

Unless you really know what you are doing, this is a really bad idea. You stand a good chance of damaging the encoder strip while remove it (I presume your is glued in, as it should be), and then you will need to glue it back in very precisely.

This idea was sent to me in videos by ToAuto when they advised how to shorten one of their scales. Here's an excerpt of that video showing removal of the small rubber tubes that hold the glass and how to remove it. They sent another video showing use of a glass cutter to score the glass and snap it.

This appears to be a better option than using a saw to cut through the aluminum and glass. I'm willing to try it to get a small profile scale for the cross head. Worst that can happen is that I'm out $60

 

[verbotenwhisky]

Hey guys, just a thought, check where your cross slide lock is, My scale is blocking mine and I will have to space the scale out from the cross slide to gain access to it.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

I used an angle grinder and thin cut off wheel to shorten my lathe glass scale. Stuffed some paper towels downstream of the bit being cut and it went through very neatly. Been working ever since.