In Search of the True...

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Pictured is my latest acquisition for the workshop: a test-dial indicator for the lathe. It's resting on Mac's original copy of The Amateur's Lathe, by Lawrence H. Sparey, published in 1948. The device measures surface difference and deflection in 1/1000ths of an inch, and is used in setting up machines such as lathes and their workpieces, in order that accurate machining can take place.

I bought this one online for the princely sum of fifteen quid, and whilst it ain't exactly a piece of Swiss precision metrological kit, it should do OK with my eighty-odd year old lathe. The interesting thing here is that in the section of the book that introduces these devices, it quotes a price of two to three pounds as a guide for purchase: a large chunk, if not all of a working man's wage in those days, and thus a serious investment for an amateur engineer.

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