Are gauge blocks repairable?

[Jonathan Coates]

My slip gauge or gauge block set, depending on your local accent, has let me down. I bought this super accurate height gauge from a well known online auction site and it proves my theories about it being the equipment, rather than the operator that makes things the wrong size.
Can these things be ground to size?
For the removal of doubt, this is not a serious post, rather a "how can they do that for around £12"? It seems to be accurate enough for quick and dirty stuff like making everyday bodgery, it has a magnetic base, works in metric and Latin and is cheap enough that you don't mind the kids borrowing it.

 

[user 52078]

My slip gauge or gauge block set, depending on your local accent, has let me down. I bought this super accurate height gauge from a well known online auction site and it proves my theories about it being the equipment, rather than the operator that makes things the wrong size.
Can these things be ground to size?
For the removal of doubt, this is not a serious post, rather a "how can they do that for around £12"? It seems to be accurate enough for quick and dirty stuff like making everyday bodgery, it has a magnetic base, works in metric and Latin and is cheap enough that you don't mind the kids borrowing it.

Not bad for a 12 quid wonder, but a lot of brass for a Yorkshire lad to splash out. The paralellism between blade and Jo block looks a bit iffy though. Maybe a trick of the photo?
Martin

 

[ShopShoe]

I made a height gauge that used a cheap digital caliper and looks like your 12-quid wonder. As you said about yours: "It seems to be accurate enough for quick and dirty stuff like making everyday bodgery..." Over time, I have acquired other means of measuring and marking and I use different techniques depending on what I want to do that day.

I think it all comes down to what you need for the project to hand. It's a hobby after all, so "whatever works."

Having said all that, if someone hires me to build a precision shop and gives me control of the money it will be Starret and Mitutoyo and calibrated everything and regular checks in a controlled environment. (Not likely, but one can dream.)

--ShopShoe

 

[Jonathan Coates]

As suggested, there is no parallelism between the bottom of the gauge and the Jo block. I think this is some kind of automatic tolerance adjustment. If your part measures wrong, try a different section of the gauge and it might become correct.

 

[Steamchick]

And there was I... making stuff using files, saws, drills, etc. and a height gauge against convenient standards like drill (shank) diameters... old ball bearing parts, and other "bought" items.
My micrometer has a vernier on the barrel for "tenths of a thou" - but my hands/skills are no longer good enough to bother with "less than a thou"... (Why can't Spell check handle so many Engineering and mathematical terms? - Are they missing from the American dictionary? - Websters, if I recall?).
My calipers are a pair of spring loaded arms, that I use against a steel rule... in 32nds of an inch. Or a Vernier caliper that sits carefully on the shelf, until it slides off and falls to the floor... (Hey-hum).
So is the gauge showing us that the digital display is " 'arf a thou" out? - "Pretty" good from the look of the lack of parallelism between the height gauge arm and the gauge block. Must be "operator error"! ().
I last used slip gauges in the controlled measurement and calibration lab at work... My workshop is not that same standard. Probably the glass surface is bent...?