Meyer pin gages

Looking at ordering a couple of pin gages for a project I'm working on but considering ordering a complete set as well for future work. Never had much need for them in the past so I'm curious as to which set + or - would you order to keep on hand? Put another way, which do you generally use more often?

We always used minus sets, it takes a couple tenths clearance to get a pin into a hole, so if the pin fits snug, you are most likely at the stated size. Put another way, if it's a .500 pin from a plus set, it's .5001" maybe .5002", so the hole has to be .5003"-.5005" to get the pin into it.

I use minus pins almost exclusively, for the same reasons as Brian.

Regards.

Mike

Ditto. Sets of minus pins, and (rarely) specific individual plus pins for the occasions when I have an especially tight tolerance (for my shop, anyway)

Minus! You can always take more out. It's the "put back" wheel that costs so much.

Regards,

Stan-

I've got minus sets, but just the basic chinese sets which are plenty fine. One had the 201pin ground all messed up but still fit in a 201hole, threw it out anyway.
We had meyer sets at one place I worked and it had a miss labeled pin by .001. I think 408 and 409 were both 409 or something.
Very useful to have either way. Helps with a lot of set ups on the mill as well, or dialing odd stuff on the lathe.

Thanks guys for your input!

I also over-use my meyer gage pin set. It was the first real piece of inspection equipment I purchased as a start up. I got the 4 drawer wood box set from someone selling off shop stuff. My goes from something like .015-.750. The large pins take up lots of space. The only thing I had to add to the conversation was my experience with the chinese sets. Often I am using my pin gage to determine if my bored hole tapers and goes all the way to a square shoulder. The meyer or higher quality pins have a very small edge break that is uniform. The chinese sets seem to have a very heavy and rough looking edge break. Looked to be done by hand on a sander or similar. This might cause you some trouble. It would for me. Sometimes I am checking the width on a shallow groove.
I can usually detect if my endmill tip is chipped slightly and that would cause a component to not sit in the bottom of the pocket.

Maybe it might help someone else decide what would be best for them.
-Greg

I like to sacrifice members of my sets..........

.....as needed for dedicated tooling where pins are used to locate holes on parts I make fixtures for. At around 2 bucks a pop to replace them, they are ready to rock and roll!