Useful and Not Well Known Enginering Tools

for the longest of time, if I did'nt have my calculator, I felt that I was naked.

One time bout 20 years ago I was in a hurry to get to work, and instead of grabbing my calculator I grab the TV remote instead. thats when I realized I had a problem.

Yes, like soldering irons and rectal thermometers are both useful items. Hardly interchangeable though.

how do you know that,,.....i'm afraid to ask

I'm afraid to ask why you DON'T know that.

Slide rule?

When all the electronics turn against the human race, we will need good slide rule operators.

Pitot tube. With one of them and a manometer you can measure air velocity, very inexpensively.

Die penetrant kit. With it you can check for cracks.

abacus,

though well known, in the hands of a skilled handler, very quick and efficient. hard to beat

Infrared temperature gun. This inexpensive tool allows you to check for elevated temperatures so you find (among other things) something that is overheating and ready to give out.

A caliper with a vernier scale. This non-dial type caliper can read down to .001 inch and has no moving part other than the slide itself.

Infrared temperature gun.

or laser temperature gun.

A caliper with a vernier scale.

thats a good answer

I like to add a non contact RPM gage.

"I like to add a non contact RPM gage."

If you mean a stroboscope, you are correct; that is a cool tool.

And fun at parties!

Oh man, I just flashbacked to the 60s and the walls started breathing.

I used a vernier caliper for years. Now I need a magnifying glass with it. I had to obtain a dial-type caliper at home and have a digital one at work.

Vernier Scale is fine until you reach certain age then you also need a magnifying glass to read it.

... well, I carry a pocket lens anyway, so I'll hang in with my old vernier - not that it rates as "not well known".

A nice set of brass trammel points for those Really Big circles:

And a German-made silver three-point compass when two points just won't do:

the three legged compass:

used to find the center of a circle or draw a line perpendicular to a chord. What else?

Hello europium:,

Well it looks like I drew the short straw............Uummm, how do you use a three leg compass?

Never seen anything like it before.

Take care.........

You sit on it. The two-legged kind are too unsteady.

Just kidding! Three-legged compasses, also called spherical compasses or globe compasses, served to transfer onto a map the positions of places taken on a globe, by measuring the distances between three points. Also used to reproduce drawings or maps to scale.

Hello europium:

Right!.............So it was kind of the original 'GPS'?

Take care and happy holiday................

That lower diagram was obviously drawn by a female. One having no concept of scale. The diagram clearly needs to be about four times bigger.

Yes, agreed, on both accounts.

(just something i grabbed from a google search, thought it might get a chuckle or two)

This is a neat looking gadget. What is it called? Please help me here so I can ask google to find it or maybe put it in an ebay search. I think I may still have room in my workshop for another tool bigger than a pencil.

Ed Weldon

Yeah, but I stick to my specialty, removing splinters, ticks, cactus spines and the occasional metal splinter (darn things...if I weren't so lazy about sharpening and setting my lathe tool bits the chips wouldn't be so tiny).

This is actually a segway to something on-topic that hadn't been mentioned before........

I often do the tiny splinter and cactus spine jobs using the low power binocular microscope I bought a few years ago from a used machinery dealer for my own workbench. For many years I insisted that the engineering groups I worked in have one of these (usually a B&L with a zoom range of 0.7 to 3 and 10x eyepieces) readily available for examining things like wear patterns, surface finishes, and other tiny features on parts and assemblies that were just below the range that human eyesight could reach. It's amazing what the engineer can discover in that world once the binocular microscope with good lighting can turn the 2d of a hand held magnifier or coddington lens into 3d.

The biggest problem would always be the theft problem with a $3000 piece of equipment sitting out where it was available for everyone to use. (which is the way you want it to be). Nowadays I would go for the more expensive version that has a third viewing point to mount a camera on.

Ed Weldon

Hello Ed Weldon:

Your posts on magnifying are interesting.

I use a large 3/5 x lens. And a 3 x and 5 x compound lens.

Can you let me have any names and such for the Binocular Magnifying scope please?

Take care, and have a happy holiday...............

babybear--

Bausch and Lomb Stereozoom 3 and 4 are the most common types in the USA. The one I have is a Nikon. I got it for a good price because the standard size eyepieces with a 23.35mm (.918 in.) mounting diameter wouldn't fit. The Nikon diameter was 30mm and one eyepiece was missing. I picked up a couple of 10x eyepieces for it on ebay and machined a couple of aluminum adapter sleeves on my little craftsman lathe. The so called "boom stand" is what you want because it has plenty of room under the microscope pod to put large assemblies or hold an an object in your hands for low power (7x to 10x) examination of things or removing splinters or doing very fine assembly work. Lots of these scopes were used in Silicon Valley in the early days of the electronics industry for doing assembly work.

Lots of these show up on ebay although you may find shipping overseas from here to be a bit expensive especially for the heavy boom stand. It wouldn't be too hard to build a sort of boom stand in a home workshop, even without any serious machine tools.

I did on occasion have to take a B&L microscope on the road while working. Rather than haul the heavy boom stand I converted one of those cheap little aluminum drill press stands, the kind you strap a portable electric drill to, to a mount for the B&L pod. It actually worked pretty well at low magnifications where vibration isn't much of an issue.

There's more to tell about these microscopes for anyone who is interested.

Ed Weldon

Hello Ed,

Thank you the info' and I will be looking out over the next year. I moved into a place several months ago, and there is no room to swing a can! The 'shed' in the handkerchief of a garden is really a box with doors! Can't walk into it as it is 5' high. So any machining is out.

I am interested if you can give anymore details though. It all depends on the price as to whether it is worth getting from the states, you know? I don't have much so a new one is out of the question, though a second or 5th hand could be on.

I am going to do some searching, but, as I say, if you have any more info let me know.

Thank you so much for the reply..........

Take care, and happy holiday!.............

Some years ago when I was working I had access to a B&L and was able to find an adapter to attach a T mount SLR Pentax to one of the eyepiece tubes (without the eyepiece) and take a lot of neat photos at low magnifications. The whole setup was a crude seismometer; so I had to bring it all to my rural home away from the "shaky" urban environment to get decent pictures with the necessary 1-2 second time exposures.

Experimenting with different illuminations I found that a sharp beam of light from one or another of the several illuminators I had (including the little Pelican Versalite) produced nice shadowing effects. The shadows in the photos compensated for the absence of the 3d of direct viewing through the microscope to a large extent. This was particularly useful when showing the images to others to illustrate my findings. One flat lighted photo next to one with the shadows was very effective.

Ed Weldon

Hello Ed,

sorry for the typo in post 111. It should have been "no room to swing a CAT"

I have a 'Bausch and Lomb' headquarters somewhere near me so con get any info' direct from the 'horses mouth'?

Take care and have a wonderful holiday............

Del is gonna be so P*$$3d at that...

milo

Hello Milo,

Del is gonna be so P*$$3d at that...

I only thought of Del after I had written it..........But sent him a holiday wish, so he should be cool..........???

Take care and have a wonderful hoilday!................

maybe Del will like that, last known location, I think he's behind the couch yet

Hello phoenix911:

Oh, I would not hurt a cat, even Del!........Unless I had the room to swing it that is!

I wonder how far a tail-less cat flies? All answers in a brown paper envelope with $10 for the correct reply..........Yes!!! I should make a bomb here!

Take care and have a wonderful holiday!............

wonder how far a tail-less cat flies?

don't know how far, but I can tell you that that probally would land on thier feet.

no brown paper envelopes

Hello phoenix911:

I think you may be right in saying it would not land on its feet!

B/%$£$%"£$£"%$£-er, wheres my ten bucks? I thought I was going to gave a great Xmas with that scam! What about if I said I have 500,000.00 to invest and I live in Nigeria?

females are poor at spatial relationships, But you can tell them that.

good answer, I agree with milo. why off topic.

My post inherited its status from the previous post and I didn't catch it prior to submission. After you submit the damn thing you're committed (I should be but the institutions are full this time of year and I didn't make my reservations in time). You can't change the status even during the 15-minute grace period. C'est la vie!

that happens to me, gonna have to complain to the management.

Management are you listening?

Alright, who the @#$%&!!!! x-rayed my head and posted it on the Internet????!!!! If I ever get hold of him/her, he/she is gonna find out the hard way that my lightsaber can be used for more than just killing Jedi!!!!

I wonder where the BBQ, Beer, and Fishing Gland is ?

Rope?

milo

Speaking of which...

The Internet? Unlimited information or maybe Humanity's pandora box.

Another useful tool:

A 10x pocket comparator from SPI with a reticle having nothing on it but a .005" graduated linear scale (a metric reticle is available). Very handy gadget for quantifying tiny things that are hard to see. I usually have to illuminate the area being examined. I use a Pelican Products VersaBrite 2200 for that because I can set it on a surface near the place I'm examining, point and focus the beam and not have to hold it with my hand. Today's cost for these items is a bit under $100 total.

Ed Weldon

Grip Wrench...

...a combination of many tools.

Duck Tape. I magine all the problems Duck Tape could have solved and how much money or other things Duck Tape could have saved.

The usefulness of duct tape cannot be overstated. Especially in the areas of foreign policy, state-of-the-union addresses, political campaigns (especially when they promise to reduce taxes); the list goes on. For such applications duct tape has no equal.

But is duct tape 'not well known?' Yes, but only in political circles. It depends on whom you talk to.

Of course, those guys shouldn't talk at all. They're Public Servants and shouldn't speak unless spoken to.

On the flip side, if Dubya had been duct-taped all this time, we wouldn't have those marvelous Bush-isms for my talking Drink'n With Dubya bottle opener:

Every time you open a bottle, this nifty little tool plays back one those incredibly inane, Gawd-What-Was-He-Thinking (I use the term loosely) little gems George always manages to utter when he can't see the teleprompter or when he is otherwise forced to think for himself. It is during these times we should apply the duct tape, but then my bottle opener wouldn't have material to draw from.

Such as:

"My relationship with this good man (Tony Blair) is where I've been focused, and that's where my concentration is. And I don't regret any other aspect of it. And so I...we filled a lot of space together."

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."

"It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet."

"It's evolutionary, going from governor to president, and this is a significant step, to be able to vote for yourself on the ballot, and I'll be able to do so next fall, I hope."

"I heard somebody say, "Now, where's Mandela?" Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas."

Now, a bottle opener that opens bottles and quotes George at the same time is a pretty useful gadget, even if it is not well known.

People are always asking about the resistance of various steels to chemicals. Here's a link I've found really useful. I have the little cardboard slider version of this; it's a lot handier, but I think you actually have to buy Hoke fittings to get one (if they still make it?). Of course, if you use fittings, Hoke makes good ones.

http://www.hoke.com/resources/Hoke%20Corrosion%20Guide.pdf

Optical Comparator (Shadow Box) http://www.stindustries.com/products.html

Still one of the best tools for measuring soft or flexible items such as small springs. Also ideal for small intricate profiles. There is a wide array of films that can be placed on the screen for a quick check of angles. Custom films can be made for a specific part to speed up the QC inspections. With surface illumination you can also measure scratches and other defects. The newer versions use a video camera. You can email what you see to your customer for approval when there are any questions.

Granted this is not a $10.00 item. It just seems so many people think that they "must" have a CMM to do any inspection work. I tried to buy a used CNC CMM for the surface plate. I was out bid by someone else that just wanted it on his shop floor so he could say he had one to help drum up business. He said many companies he tried to do business with asked if he had one. When he said no they would pass him over. He had no intentions of setting it up and having it calibrated. But he could say he had one.

I start amlost every project with one of these options:

To expand on this, I count this as a little known tool becaused it is very under-used today. Everything goes right to CAD. I think my generation was the last to even see a drawing board and understand the value of a sketch that didn't include a mouse or spaceball.

I still enjoy creating the occasional drawing for my home projects. A good drawing done "old school" is like a work of art these days. It's too bad that being able to draw is becoming a lost art in engineering and design. Especially when you're in a meeting and someone is trying to explain something with a sketch on the white board and they couldn't sketch a basic box if their life depended on it.

I have found a set of thread gauges handy:

Note to you QA people, they are marked "for reference only"

gdevine -- your last comment is great:

"Note to you QA people, they are marked 'for reference only' ".

Those little stickers are priceless. They speak volumes about how our society is losing its grip on manufacturing technology. I'm guessing the shop they came from was a victim of ISO 9001. The fact that you have them now suggests that they didn't recover.

OK, I'm probably being a little harsh on the ISO certification thing. It often forces companies to get their act together. But it does tend to put a glossy coat over cracks and corrosion.

I'd classify it in the "well known but not useful tools" category.

Ed Weldon

Tap Alignment tool.

It can be made in just a few minutes on a lathe. Turn a round shank to fit your drill press and a 60 degree taper on the other end. Chuck it up in the drill press. Use it to align the hole to be tapped. Place tap (mounted in wrench) into the hole. Lower the alignment tool into the top of the tap or wrench depending on type used. Keep gentle pressure on the drill press quill as you turn the tap. The one shown above is spring loaded but rigid works fine.

if you can use chopsticks they are quite handy in the workshop

Worked in Japan for a while - the (Japanese) guy I was working with showed me how to use meter prods with one hand à la chopsticks. It's a very useful thing to be able to do.

An ability I don't have, but wish I had, is to be able to move & focus my eyes independently.

Given these techniques, one could check the volts across a component on a PCB (left hand meter prods, left eye meter), while adjusting a trimpot (right hand & eye - having lost the trimpot tool and being constrained to use a watchmakers screwdriver in amongst some live stuff).

Can an ability be counted as a tool?

That is why they use those long prods here now i understand

We have often used a 3 channel olefactory spectrometer to identify various chemical compounds (particularly organics). Take 3 engineers and use a sniff test.

I have no pictures:think english name must be curve-meter:very small wheel,gears an multiple scale clock(¿?) useful to meseaure length of curves in maps for diferents scales.

Other one:in the past some people didn't like use logarithm tables or needed more exact values so no slide rule:they used 1000x1000 table.

I DO A LOT OF WOOD WORKING AND AM CONSTANTLY GETTING SLIVERS. I'VE HAD A TWEEZER WITH A MAGNIFING GLASS ATTACHED FOR ABOUT TEN YEARS NOW AND ITS BEEN INVALUABLE FOR REMOVING SLIVERS. THINK I PAID $2.00 AT THE LOCAL HARDWARE STORE.

OILCAN13

Plastigage.

Machinists putty.

In a pinch I have used silly putty when I could not get machinists putty.

I believe the Apollo astronauts, used silly putty.

I am quite surprised that the virtues of a spreadsheet are not extolled to young engineers as a general-purpose "tool" that more readily allows the making of additional "tools" of more specific analysis, productivity, presentation, etc., on an as-needed basis...

In effect, a tool that can (make) other tools seems like a rather valuable one to me...

maybe using a spread sheet is so common, that no one thought about it.

The best way to hide something is out in the open.

Spreadsheets:

Useful? yes. Not well known? (I assume) no. While agreeing with Guest about the usefulness, I'd say they are excluded by the second criterion.

agreed, some some of the things mention arre known to the few who use it.

I agree with the spreadsheet. It is a commonly know application but I don't believe that it's usefulness in design and engineering is understood. I know from my experience that it isn't used very much.

And I know when I use it most are lost when I forward them one.

A small knife in my keys chain. It serves as a hardness tester, because I know it's hardness is around 50 HRC. Easy to check if there's a chrome plate, if the steel is hardened, etc. May also be used as a scribe tool to detect surface flaws if used with parcimony.

And also serves to peel off oranges after lunch...

A planimeter. It is used to measure area under a curve. Useful on maps and ship design.

Used to use my planimeter to measure the area under the curve produced by this -

and yes I am old enough to have used it on triple expansion steam engines. I have another one for low speed diesel engine diagrams. This is not a picture of my own, but it is by the same maker.

The diagram is also from the site http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel/Indicator/Indicator1.htm

I wonder if those engines you worked,(looking the diesel cycle in the picture),was a blower type (i don't know the english name) without pump,with compressed air big bottles.Was it?

As noted in the post, the indicator diagram is taken from the quoted site as an example. It is in fact of a steam engine, the details of which are on the right hand side of the diagram.