What are 1 2 3 blocks?

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Hilmar said:
How about big numbers?

Mega 1 Million = Number with 6 zero
Giga 1 Milliards = Number with 9 zeros
Tera 1 billion = Number with 12 zeros
Peta 1 billiard = Number with 15 zeros
Exa 1 Trillion = Number with 18 zeros

Well how do you write a Billion or Trillion in English ??

This has to be a joke of some kind. Please explain to the newbie...
 
John Stevenson said:
A lot of peoples use of them is as precision packings or parallels but why do they have to be 1-2-3 ? Does anyone ever measure off them? I suppose some must do.

I would imagine they are the minimum practical size someone lost to antiquity came up with to manage myriad tasks without having to have a special jig for each. The ones I've seen have had evenly spaced holes along each surface and some have a few holes of those holes that are tapped. If nothing else, this means you can set up something at right angles to something else with a minimum of fuss & bother. It wouldn't take a whole lot of magic to create T-slot adapters to lock them down to a milling deck or a cross slide that has T-slots in it.

I guess it comes down to them being whatever the you want them to be and this being a decent size to accomplish that task.

Just my opinion, of course, which has a street value something less than dirt.

BEst regards,

Kludge
 
Kermit,

No joke,
The ways things measured or counted in one country is not necessarily so in another country.
In the English language the billion has 9 zeros and the Trillion has 12 and in the German and I am pretty sure in other languages also the billion has 12 and the trillion has 18 zeros.

Merry Christmas to all.
Hilmar
 
One of my favorite 1-2-3 uses is two bolted together at right angles to make a perpendicular that's more useful in many situations than an ordinary square. I confess I also rarely make use of the dimensional measurements.

Another good one is aligning lathe tools-- trap one between the chuck face and toolpost to square up the parting tool and the like.
 
No one has mentioned it, but shred touched on it, so I'll tell you one thing I was taught to use them for.

Bolt 2 together, they form a nice right angle. Sort of a large V-block. Clamp a round piece to it, and indicate the height after zeroing on one of the faces. This gives you the diameter. You halve that, and can now scribe a line across the face of the round. Flip the whole thing over 90 degrees, and scribe another line. Volia, centerlines at right angles. Perfect for laying out a hole pattern.
 
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