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For my swap item I made a bar gauge inspired by the WoodPeckers OneTimeTool bar gauge.

I used 303 stainless 3/8" solid round bar for the rods, there are 6 at 12", 2 at 8" and 1 at. 6" plus the two fixed 6" bars. Each end of the bars was locked into a collet on my lathe, faced, chamfered, center drilled and tapped 1/4-20. A stud was installed in one end with blue loctite, in the event threads become damaged they can be replaced.

For the blocks I used 6061 aluminum, rough cut in my bench vise with a sawzall then secured in a 4-jaw chuck on the lathe and faced on 4 sides into 2 matching rectangular blocks. I then offset them in the chuck to bore the through holes, positioning them so I could bore one then carefully loosen the jaws & flip the block for the other. I got to finally use an adjustable hand reamer I picked up a while back to ream the holes a little bigger than 3/8 for the bars to slide.
All edges were eased on the belt sander and the blocks were sanded to a brushed finish for a working tool.

I then drilled the vertical holes (on the drill press) in the blocks for the thumbscrews- on one block there is a countersunk 10-32 machine screw on the bottom securing a fixed rod. That block also has a hole on top threaded 10-32 which can pinch the top sliding rod. The other block has the fixed rod on top with a hole allowing a 10-32 screw to pass into the lower rod's passageway. The fixed rods themselves are drilled and tapped 10-32 across the 3/8 dimension- this was a little tricky, you can see it in one of the photos mounted in the lathe chuck sideways.

The thumbscrews are female threaded knobs with cut-to-length stainless bolts installed with red loctite- hopefully they stay put!

I machined 3 pairs of brass tips, without the tips the gauge can go as small as 6", and it can go over 8ft

I sure hope Earl enjoys it!

Thanks for looking! Click the link below for a video
Grant

Gallery

Comments

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4,322 Posts
Oh yeah I'm going to enjoy using it, for sure. This is one solid, well made bar gauge. Excellent work Grant!!
 

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969 Posts
Thanks for the explanation Grant! Looks great and sounds like a lot of work but I'm sure Earl will put it to work!
 

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4,961 Posts
That is impressive Grant! Thanks for the video of your work in action.
 

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980 Posts
Cool - Thanks for posting your "how to". I thought about something like this but I couldn't figure out how to do it. Nice execution.
 

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3,100 Posts
Awesome work and a great video. This one should last forever!
 

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21,780 Posts
Excellent work Grant. Definitely a great tool to have and definitely an excellent process for making it happen. I would have just done the cross-drilling and tapping on the drill press. Your way is a lot cooler though ;-). It's also a knuckle-buster whenever I'm around. :-/

Awesome to see you take the idea and run with it!
 

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Thanks guys! I did a fair amount of thinking about the block / rod interfaces to wrap my head around it! I enjoyed building it though!

Kenny if the bar was a half inch longer it would hit the ways and I'd have to use the drill press- I do currently have a round bar center finder in my shopping cart though! And I have a 2-flute spiral tap on the way to try (didn't see a 2-flute with straight flutes, gonna try the spiral, should work great!)
 

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Lots of work machining that all yourself, wow. Looks professional. Is this used for transferring inside dimensions?
 
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