Lee Valley optical center punch

[Bob Davis]

I was looking on the Lee Valley website last night for information on the large saddle square I found in my Christmas stocking. While browsing, I ran across their optical center punch. This gadget looks ingenious and might solve a delimma I've always had - marking the exact center for drilling a hole. I just got a new drill press and I get frustrated with having a device that will drill precisely, yet I cannot seem to get it lined up to start the hole in the right place. Parallax error is rampant when I try to do this.

Does anyone own or use one of these optical center punches? At $29.95, its well worth it if it does the job. Otherwise its a big waste of money.

Bob

[John Wadsworth]

I have one, but seldom use it--a brad-point bit is pretty easy to line up on a marked dot or crossed line. I think it would work for you, though, so long as the surface being marked is dead flat. I used it recently to mark the mounting holes for the horizontal toolbar on my Tormek.

John Wadsworth

[Greg G.]

Either Lee Valley or Garrett Wade sell a mechanical center point finder. You could make your own with a length of straight 1/4" steel rod sharpened to a point on one end. Set up time increases with the use of anything you have to chuck in and out, however. FWIW,

Greg G.

[Silvan]

I haven't used the gizmo in question. It looks damn useful, but it's spendy, and I can make do without it.

How are you drilling? If you're just marking a big X and then trying to feed a standard 3/8" bit straight into the dead center of the X, you're probably not going to get stellar accuracy.

For metal, I use a center punch. Mark the X, hold the punch at an angle to the piece, line up the point just oh-so, and tap it with a ball pein hammer. For wood, I do the same thing using a very sharp awl. The trick in either case is to hold the point where you can see it, then slowly swing it up to perpendicular without moving it relative to the workpiece. Difficult to describe, easy to do.

The LV gadget looks like a cool way to avoid the extra hassle of having to finesse this oh so carefully, and I'm not trying to cost Robin a sale here. I'm just saying if you're fiscally challenged, you might be able to get by without it.

[clutch]

Greg G. wrote: [snip]

I have a starret center/edge finder that I use for mostly metal work. It is a 1/2" dia cylindrical body of steel that has a round cylinder at one end and a tapered point at the other. You can chuck that sucker up, put the point in your dimple and feel how the tapered point matches up with body. Some one with beter language skills may jump in to explain this better.

Wes

[Rob Lee]

Syvain -

No worries - I don't have one of these either...I can't justify it for what I do!

It is a well made tool - and at a great price for an optical center punch...but you still hafta need one!

Cheers -

Rob

[Silvan]

Syvain? You trying to say I'm vain or something? Hrmph. Well, so much for that $1600 order I was about to place.

(Yeah, right. We both wish. :)

That's somehow reassuring. A purveyor of tools, but not a tool pimp. That's good. :)

BTW, Robin... I sent you a question a bit ago by email. Now, if you've been busy and haven't had a chance to catch it, that's absolutely fine. However, I've been having problems with email, and have a niggling feeling that I've lost a few into the Great Void lately. I'm wondering if your reply got lost... Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? Did you reply? If not, please don't feel compelled to go hunt it down. It's not a priority matter. My main concern is confirming that I really am losing mail into never never land.

[Rob Lee]

Hi -

Please email me again - pretty sure I'm caught up with email replys, but there is a risk that it got caught in a spam filter...

(hope you weren't trying to sell me vicodin, or the Paris Hilton video.... ;)

Cheers -

Rob

[Rob Lee]

"replies"... sheesh.

[Charlie Self]

You know what does that? Reading on the net. You start to write like what you're reading.

Charlie Self

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton

[Luigi Zanasi]

On 27 Dec 2003 22:20:11 GMT, [e-mail] (Charlie Self) scribbled

Can't be. Robin didn't use an apostrophe -- as in "reply's". More likely too much testing of the beer glasses. :-)

Luigi Replace "no" with "yk" for real email address

[Charlie Self]

Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world, bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.

Charlie Self

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton

[Silvan]

Vicodin? Should I even ask?

No, nothing like that. It was a question about Brusso hardware.

[Silvan]

It's OK. You'r Canukistani, so I didn't even notice. Colourful spellings are all part of the charm.

[Silvan]

Yes. I'll never forget the day one of my English profs felt the need to lecture us on "its" vs. "it's." I just couldn't believe a university English class could *need* such a lecture. That was all part of my rude awakening about the state of education in America.

I used to work in a copy center too, and I had to type peoples term paper's. (Note, for those who are getting ready to hit the reply button with a smartass gotcha comment, I said "peoples term paper's" on purpose. It's called irony people.)

No damn wonder no one has paid any heed to my college degree. It's about the same as my grandfather's high school diploma.

(I hafta admit on it's vs. its, I sometimes write the wrong thing in spite of knowing better. You're vs. your too. I edit myself, and I certainly know the difference, but it's still easy to do. I let one through occasionally.)

On this topic though, I still can't decide how to properly handle things like "He got straight A's" or similar. Gut says apostrophe for pluralization is *always* wrong, but "He got straight As" just doesn't work either. Best avoided as much as possible.

[LP]

I seriously doubt it. They don't teach the difference between nouns and verbs either, apparently.

My personal pet peeve in this area is the inappropriate use of the word "router", as in "I'm going to router a groove in it." "Router" is a noun and describes the tool, while "rout" is the verb and describes the action performed with the (noun) tool.

Inattention to detail seems to be the order of the day, and greatly detracts from our ability to communicate.

[Charlie Self]

Like, yaknowwhadImean.

I listened to one of my granddaughters over the holidays. I used to tease her about having a speech impediment, overuse o fthe word "like." I can no longer tease her about it, because it now seems to be an ACTUAL impediment. Every third word is the best she can do right now. When you say anything to her about it making her speech hard to understand, she says, "Well, you know what I mean."

Not really and, in truth, with her and others like her, I refuse to expend the energy to figure out what she is saying.

Charlie Self

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton

[Greg G.]

Is she a valley girl? Like, don't have like a cow man.

Greg G.

[Tom Watson]

I'm fighting this fight with my eleven year old daughter. I've told her that she can talk like a child to other children but must do better when talking to me.

I've encouraged her to think of it as being bilingual.

So far, I'm winning.

We'll see...

Regards,

Tom Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)

email is tjwatsonATsnipDOTnet)

[LRod]

Ahhh, my favorite subject.

Don't be disrespecting the homeys, bro. As a former government employee, verbification is one of the things that drives me nuts. It starts there and then makes it to the streets.

But among my top annoyances is the misuse of your/you're, as well as their/there/they're.

Add in opps for oops.

OWW: Not to mention joiner for jointer and planner for planer.

People who can't spell (or type) worth a damn like to argue it doesn't matter. As a professional communicator, I maintain that if one's ideas aren't clearly and accurately presented, one won't be taken seriously, irrespective of the efficacy of those ideas.

Thank you.

LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999