Even as a kid, I was a tool aficionado. My Dad gave me an old Starrett tool catalogue and in it I discovered planer gauges. I had absolutely no use for one but I wanted one! Then, as now, they were brutally expensive but I loved the look of them. They shouted intricate, technical mystery and artistic form. I guess I thought it was "cool" long before that word had that connotation.
Recently I had an opportunity to buy a used planer gauge for a comfortable price, so, like all old men reliving their youth, I jumped on it.
Planer gauges were designed to set heights in a tool known as a ..wait for it...planer. For the benefit of the kids on the forum...
A planer was a large tool with a fixed table to which the work was attached. Above the table was a movable frame that carried a cutting tool. As the frame moved, this tool "planed" material from the work to produce flat surfaces. It was roughly the mechanized, metalworking equivalent of what woodworkers do when they plane a board. Planers were a tool of the early metalworking era and have largely disappeared today, replaced by large mills.
As the photos show, the tool consists of a triangular frame. The angle of the frame looks like 30 degrees but is a puzzling 26.9 deg*. The hypotenuse of the triangle has a T-slot into which is fitted a movable carrier. The carrier has a precision flat on its upper corner that can function as a variable height gauge. Two other flats, one horizontal and one vertical, have tapped holes that accept the accessory knurled extension that is a precise 2.5" in length.
I'm not old enough to have ever used one of these so I can't elaborate on its intended use. I'll never own or use a planer so I really don't care about how they were used in the old days.
What I'm looking for is ideas for modern uses for this tool that capitalize on its accuracy, i.e., no paperweight or doorstop suggestions. I'm looking for some creative ideas, something beyond the obvious...
square
height gauge
26.9 degree angle gauge
slot width transfer gauge
DI carrier
--
* The 26.9 deg angle puzzled me enough that I undertook to measure it accurately. Using the tool itself, I could get a fairly accurate measure of the rise/run ratio for the sliding element. The ratio came out to be 0.5071. If we take the acrtangent of that, the result is 26.889 deg, very close to the 26.9 deg I measured with an electronic inclinometer.
That ratio is suspiciously close to 0.5 (corresponding to an angle of 26.56 deg) and, given the possible errors in my measurements, it could well be that. OTOH, the utility of such a mathematically simple ratio in this tool isn't at all obvious.
As soon as our weather warms I'll set up to do a high accuracy measurement of the angle using a sine bar and report on the results.
In the meantime, I have a thread pending in HSM to see what wisdom I can glean from the clever monkeys over there.
Bookmarks