Tom O
Ultra Member
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Marketplace cylinder square
- Thread starter Tom O
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Tom Kitta
Ultra Member
It was probably rusted all over the place and they removed the rust.
Price is way too high for "unknown" cylinder by "someone in US" in "may have been covered in rust" condition.
140mower
Don
Is the center smaller, and therefore no polish needed? A question based on wanting to learn rather than trying to teach .... I have never seen one in person before and very little that I do requires much for precision. (Yet I still manage to screw up 50% of the time)
Is the center smaller, and therefore no polish needed? A question based on wanting to learn rather than trying to teach .... I have never seen one in person before and very little that I do requires much for precision. (Yet I still manage to screw up 50% of the time)
I don't think so Don. They are generally square along the whole length and circumference. That way they can be used to check anything at any height.
But I'm no expert either. I've certainly never seen one like that.
I'd have to agree with @Tom Kitta - it could have been badly rusted and then cleaned up. That would account for the peened appearance everywhere except the ends.
If so, it's a paper weight now.
Proxule
Ultra Member
Inspect the parts big enough to need the 4 x 8 foot, 12" thick granite surface plate that one shop I was in was using as a lunch table!
Everything needs to be bigger, when you play with the 'big' parts! That table came out of (IIRC) a Pratt and Whitney prototype shop in Montreal, I was told. Pre Coordinate Measuring Machine, or Laser 3D scanner days.
Reminds me of an apocryphal tale, of a Watchmaker and an Oilfield Machinist standing staring at a 1/4-20 tap, both in awe. "I never knew they made taps so large", sez the Watchmaker "I never knew they made them so small, replies the Machinist"!
FWIW, I kinda get the impression that the ends of the cylinder are polished from contact with the saddles in the storage box it resides in. One way or another, though, it would behoove a fella to take caution before diving in, as far as inspecting before parting with any money. If got for the right price, AND having access to a decent cylindrical grinder large enough, even if it had been badly treated, it's a fairly (though not exactly trivial) basic cylindrical grind, with a facing grind across the foot ends, to true it up.
I've got a couple and all the ones I've seen are a perfect cylinder. It could still work to check a square as long as itself, but what a loss of functionality! I wouldn't touch one that wasn't perfect. Yeah, if really cheap one could regrind it, sigh, but adding stuff to the todo pile puts me off these days (more mountain than pile)
At the highest end, they are a precision reference tool only gently taken from their felt lined box for setting an indicator. That imo is what they are most useful for.
I went through my "precision" stage quite a awhile ago, and I've done a fair bit quite demanding precise stuff (scraping and grinding machines and spindles) ..... but still, once past my "precision" stage I don't think i've touched a cylindrical square in at least a decade. Unless you are in your precise stage, you're not missing much
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slow-poke
Ultra Member
I'm thinking about the size of the cylinder, and trying to imagine what type of engine these would be used for?
It's way bigger than say a DD15 truck engine, also larger than the ten most common CAT engines, but smaller than a typical locomotive engine.
Seems if your rebuilding engines of that nature, your not sourcing your tools on Facebook.
It's way bigger than say a DD15 truck engine, also larger than the ten most common CAT engines, but smaller than a typical locomotive engine.
Seems if your rebuilding engines of that nature, your not sourcing your tools on Facebook.
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That a very insightful comment. It probably applies to a high percentage of us. But I don't think it is universal.
Taking myself as an example of a non-conforming radical, I started making and fixing stuff well over 60 years ago. At the time everything was done with a tape measure. I still keep a small thin Stanley in my left rear pocket. It's the second most used tool I own right after my small Swiss Army knife.
My first "precision tool" was a Mitutoyo Vernier Caliper. Wow! Thousandths of an inch!
Over the years I have expanded both the frequency and range of the precision I use to include yards (farm work), finger widths (farm equipment work), thousandths (for most machining), and microns (custom smithing and precision for precisions own sake).
I don't think I have, or ever will have, a precision phase in my life.
It's not used for that purpose (engine cylinders) at all. It's really a 90 degree square that happens to be cylindrical to increase its versatility.
140mower
Don
Huh ? Then what are those patch plates in the Ford ?Precisely.....
140mower
Don
So far they have been feeble attempts at learning a new craft....
Huh?
Engine?
You seem to be under some misapprehensions about what a cylinder square is and what it is used for! Not for engine work type cylinders! It IS a cylinder, in shape, the edges of which are at a near perfect 90 degrees (aka: "Square") to the end surfaces.
Used on a surface plate, for inspecting suitably sized parts for their squareness, and in some cases, for setting other inspection equipment to be able to use 'that' equipment to check parts!
slow-poke
Ultra Member
I'm as "hobby machinist" as it gets. I have yet to see one and the name and shape implied (to me) that is was for checking the squareness of a bored cylinder.
I surrender.
They're a cool idea.
If it was rectangular then the base would have be square in two directions to be quick and easy to use.
Cylindrical doesn't have to be so as there are always two tangent points that are square to the base. Imagine if you will, you're standing looking at the leaning tower of Pisa, from the good seats you say "my, yon tower is leaning". Same if you view it from the opposite side, but of course it is now in the opposite direction. From the cheap seats, 90 degrees from the first spot, you wonder what all the hubbub's about because the tower is as straight as they come.