dial indicator uses?

Michael...

You can use it to check "roundness" and "straightness" of things that rotate. You can make a holder to hold it at different increments of height and set router bit and table saw blade height to the accuracy of the indicator/stability of the holder (you /will/ eventually spend for the magnetic base :-)

see my post on the table saw analness thread...

a lot of the holding setups can be achieved just fine with nuts and bolts, blocks of wood and C clamps.

I often use one to accurately set up incremental positions on my table saw or shaper fence. I use a magnetic base to hold it in this application, but you could make some sort of wodden base that would work as well.

I have a picture of this setup on my website. See it here:

That's a thread I'd rather avoid. Turned into a dick measuring contest. They must have unhappy wives.

As has been stated you will get a mag base eventually. If only to have the arm, post and clamps that come with it. The clamp and arm are more important than the base.

I've got to agree with that. If all you need is a mag base, grab the flat, circular magnet from a floppy drive and use that. Good magnet, and it recycles dead drives.

Dave in Fairfax

Align your drill press, attach to tablesaw/fence for accurate small incremental adjustments. Use it to check the runout of the arbor on your saw, etc.

John

Get the magnetic base, they are only about $20 Cdn. I use it to set up my jointer blades, and verify the blade on the table saw is at 90 deg. to the table. To do that you need to build a small jig to hold the guage. The base of the jig goes against the blade at table height and the dial indicator touches the blade near the top. Adjust it to zero and then move it to the other side of the blade. If it is zero your blade is good if not it is something other than 90 deg.

Rick

Here are 5:

Use it to set the height of your jointer knives.

Bernie

If you have the mounting hardware you can use it to check your drill press to ensure that the table is perpendicular to the drill shaft (sorry, I'm at a loss for what to call the column the drill bit goes in - no, not the chuck).

I have a TS-Aligner and it included some extra parts that will allow me to do the above as well as check that my bandsaw table is perpendicular to my blade and that (if I had one) the jointer fence is perpendicular to the table. Other uses: Check your jointer tables to see what the exact difference between them is, check that the jointer blades are level with the outfeed table, align your radial arm saw, depth gauge, etc. The gauge can also be used to ensure that things that rotate (like the table saw arbor) are not out of round.

-- Jim

You could look outside of woodworking.

Depending a bit on the kind of indicator it is, it's a great tool for when you're hand-grinding your own telescope mirror!

Just for the early stages though. I got one for that purpose and it sits idle now.

They're really accurate AND specialized. Betcha a machine shop can tell you how many ways they're useful.

James snipped-for-privacy@rochester.rr.com

The Quill Philski

In fact, you can find them for less that $10 if you look hard on the web (not counting s&h)

John

Quill

John

I was in one of those once, it required a survey crew.

Barry

With simple setups, check the knives in your jointer and planer for proper height. Check cutterheads (jointer and planer) to see if they are parallel to the table. Set height and parallelism of bed rollers, chipbreaker, and outfeed roller on a planer. Check arbor runout on the tablesaw, chuck runout on the drill press and router bit runout. With a 1/2 rod in the collet of you router in your router table and a dial indicator attached to the rod, you can tell if your router is perpendicular to you table. I am sure there is more.

Preston

I think you got big balls saying something like that!

Gary

If I don't really need a magnet thingie, I can make something functionally equivalent to the rest of the thing, it looks like.

I've spent too much money lately. I'm in a making stuff out of junk mode now. So I can have some money to actually buy lumber. Sometimes I forget what the point of all this really is. :)

No planer, no jointer, no bandsaw. I'm depraved.