Dial Gauge mount for a small Mill

[garage nut]

Doing my bit to stay out of the shops or any other crowded place today.

So I have some ali blocks to machine to size. The reason why I have been avoiding this is the fact that



The base of the dial indicator is too BIG. I can not attach it to the mill spindle and move it up and down to square up the block.
I know I should use and endmill and just run ot 90 deg to the vice as the vice is set up square, but again my mill is too small and I do not have enough of a stroke to get to the bottom of the block.

But I have a plan.



I can remove this part of the rose cutter and make something to fit there.
And with a bit of scratching in the off-cut box, a bit if welding, grinding, drilling and good old filing it is done.



And from the other side.



And just too prove it actually produces the goods.



Now no excuse not to stay at home and finish the rest of the blox.

[DIYer]

Thanks garage nut! We've added your Dial Indicator Mount to our Measuring and Marking category,
as well as to your builder page: garage nut's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Dial Indicator Mount by garage nut

tags: mill, dial indicator, mount

[tooly]

Doing my bit to stay out of the shops or any other crowded place today.

So I have some ali blocks to machine to size. The reason why I have been avoiding this is the fact that



The base of the dial indicator is too BIG. I can not attach it to the mill spindle and move it up and down to square up the block.
I know I should use and endmill and just run ot 90 deg to the vice as the vice is set up square, but again my mill is too small and I do not have enough of a stroke to get to the bottom of the block.

But I have a plan.



I can remove this part of the rose cutter and make something to fit there.
And with a bit of scratching in the off-cut box, a bit if welding, grinding, drilling and good old filing it is done.



And from the other side.



And just too prove it actually produces the goods.



Now no excuse not to stay at home and finish the rest of the blox.

I note you are using one double check the accuracy of this, I purchased one of these it was a long way off square absolute garbage.

[garage nut]

I did the normal visual verification of the square once I received it by just putting it on a flat surface and scribing a line on a piece of plate I made to stand behind it with a big magnet and then turning the square 180 Deg and scribing another line as close to the previous one and checking the parallelism of the 2 lines. This was perfectly acceptable for me.

How did you check yours, I would like to double check mine using another method. I like to be digitally. That is why I use a gauge to square up my blocks. I could just have used the square on the base of the vice.

[tooly]

I did the normal visual verification of the square once I received it by just putting it on a flat surface and scribing a line on a piece of plate I made to stand behind it with a big magnet and then turning the square 180 Deg and scribing another line as close to the previous one and checking the parallelism of the 2 lines. This was perfectly acceptable for me.

How did you check yours, I would like to double check mine using another method. I like to be digitally. That is why I use a gauge to square up my blocks. I could just have used the square on the base of the vice.

I have a granite surface plate and set the square against a i,2,3 block with a light on the other side the result was horrible, actually it was so bad i could see the gap with out the light source. I had a perfect quarrel with Bangood about it but they would not honor my complaint.