It's been - well a long time since I have posted anything to the blog. In that time not much modelling was done either. For various reason's I haven't been able to spend much time doing my hobbies. The biggest reason is due to a nagging wrist injury. Any type of work involving my dominant hand caused too much pain to have any fun. Through a bunch of physio, exercises and strength training - along with switching to my non dominant hand for mouse work, I am finally back to a place where I am not in pain and can start doing some modelling again. My work bench was in a bit of a state of chaos. So I started with a big clean up. While organizing things I came across an old friend. This Starret #257A tool steel Surface gauge which I inherited from my former employee and Leadhand at work when he unfortunately passed away.
It was in pretty rough shape as he hadn't used it in years. I decided it would be a good idea to spend a couple evenings cleaning it up and getting it back in service. I started out by disassembling it and cleaning it with alcohol. I followed up with polishing out any surface rust using a purple Scotch Brite pad. It was missing the snug and scriber. So I ordered a replacement snug from McMaster Carr - I fortunately had an extra scriber in my machinist tool box.
After another cleaning with Acetone the base was ready for bluing to protect it from rusting again. I decided to hot blue it with a propane torch. I did this out in my garage work shop, on top of a couple of thin steel flat bars. I think it came out great. I did have couple of oil spots show up on the surface when I heated it, some oil or grease was down in one of the threaded holes which I failed to clean out. It spurted on the surface when it got hot and left some spotting. Oh well, it's a reminder to make sure to clean out every nook and cranny on the next project.
This great old tool now has a new lease on life. It will easily last my lifetime and probably a few more. Next to it is my Starret #56c tool steel surface gauge (the smaller version). Starret also makes a cast steel version of the #257 which is less expensive. If you interested in getting one of these for yourself, heres a link to the Starret online Catalogue.
https://www.starrett.com/products/precision-shop-tools/surface-gages
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