Saturday, April 18, 2009

Crazy Tools from Jacin Barnes

This shop tip comes from Metalshapers.org where Jacin Barnes and myself are members.

I wanted a tool to quickly lay out holes from the edge of panels as well as find/mark the center of a piece of round tubing - actually marking the Center of a piece of tubing was my main reason for these - I figured you can both measure the OD and scribe the center with the same tool. Had an "old" pair of calipers no longer suitable for machine work (been dropped - ID part bent) so they were "freebies" and I figured - what the heck - nothing ventured... nothing gained.

I think I'll get a lot of use out of these. Time will tell.

As you can see - holding them parallel is key to keeping your line on the mark. Normally I wouldn't scribe metal with a "good" set of calipers - but these are perfect for that as they were "junk" to start with. I will admit I have used some of my "lesser" calipers for scribing metal (for rows of rivets for instance) of course I was always struggling to keep the calipers at the proper angle. With these you simply tilt them back and use the long jaw as a guide - works pretty good. Of course - I'm an admitted simpleton - so it doesn't take alot to amuse me.

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