Craigslist Score!?

I think I scored on craigslist today. Got a machinst box of tooling for $160. Included in the brown felt lined box whick I cant figure out who made it, was an Interapid 311b-1 .0005 DTI with attachments in almost new shape not one scratch on the crystal, a B&S magnetic surface plate guage, nearly and entire letter set of drill bits almost all new, various lapping stones, little Kelios adj. parallel, bunch of allen wrenches, and 20 assorted endmills from 3/16 to 1". And not one piece from china or india! All the drills and mills were either by NY drill or weldon.

Also in there was a whol bunch of tooling made by the original owner, inuding 1" parallels, v-blocks with clamps, a coupe dressing tools for surface grinders, a couple 1-2-3 blocks, some 1" thick brass risers for a magnetic chuck, a couple indicol style indicator holders, and a few doohickeys I will probably never know their intended purpose. Everything this guy made is beautifully made, finely ground finishes, the indictor holders were made from aluminum and anodized blue.

I picked up a Etalon .00005" indicating micrometer for $20. The indicating movement had gotten little oil in it and was gummy. I used a little Zep aerosolve and that cleaned it up. The only problem is one of the carbide faces is missing. I know I can get this replaced. Any recommendations on who to send it to. These are about $850 new so I assume it would be good to fix.

I guess my question is did I pay too much for all this stuff? I realize the interapid is an old model and I am not going to be able to find parts for it.

Heres some pics of the booty... And can anyone identfy the toolbox?

Nice score.

here's a repair option:

http://longislandindicator.com/repairservice.html

highly regarded on this forum

Thats the people I was thinking of sending it to. They seem to know all the in's and out's of indicators.

Nice! You certainly would have paid more than that if you'd bought the pieces separately.

The pink whetstone in the first drawer is an interesting color. That isn't one of those synthetic ruby stones, is it?

The second drawer, the one containing the flycutter, has some pieces that look like Starrett indicator accessories.

The J-shaped item in the bottom drawer is a ???

I'll give ya a wild guess, based on the sparkplug, the candy wrapper (!), scrap of rubber hose, the hex-shank nut driver and the hex-shank screwdriver bit, plus the bend in the lid near the lock. My guess is that somebody who was not a machinist owned this chest for a while.

John Ruth

Parts for the Interapids are still available. Unless it's REALLY ancient, LIIS can repair it with factory fresh parts if you need 'em. I think the toolbox is an older Kennedy; I have one almost identical to it that I got from a friend's father when I started my apprenticeship, and mine still has the Kennedy label in it.

If it is synthetic ruby, I sure cant tell. I cant find anything but one site that sells them and they want lmost $40 for one an eith the size of this one.

The starrett holders are shop made as well the fly cutter. It has "reverse" stamped in the bottom?

I have no clue what that j shaped thing is. only thing I could think of is maybe some sort of device to hold an indicator off one of the indicol mounts? Maybe let you drop the indicator down a cylinder?

The guy that had it bought it from the estate sale of a guy who was machinist. He had no clue what any of this stuff was. If the original owner was a automotive machinist I could understand the spark plugs.

LIIS says on their site that ths idicator was discontinued 30 years ago! No parts avaiI. I have found contact tips still though. I guess as long as I take as good care of the indicator as the original owner it will last just as long.

Some of the shop made tools have a date of '81 stamped into them next to his name, so its been a while..

LIIS says on their site that ths idicator was discontinued 30 years ago! No parts avaiI. I have found contact tips still though. I guess as long as I take as good care of the indicator as the original owner it will last just as long."

huh? i was referring to the broken etalon mic .
LII has a page on their site about repairing them,
and sells those mic's as well.

why would you want to repair that which isn't yet broken ?

I'm going to bet he was an auto machinist as well. The Isky sticker on the front of the box is a good clue

Those blue C-shaped devices look like they were for attatching the indicator to something, probably a boring head, then holding an indicator. Probably used for tramming in cylinder bores prior to reboring.

Also, what are those metal blocks next to the endmills? Is that Mallory metal? (very heavy metal used for balancing crankshafts).

Included in the brown felt lined box whick I cant figure out who made it,

Click to expand...

I think the box is made by Union Steel Chest, model MT7 out of Leroy, New York.

MitsTech:

Yeah, the blue items are shop made version of Indicol's DTI holders that attach to your spindle for centering.

Those are little pieces are adhesive backed foam rubber. No idea what those were in there for.

Macona,

About identifying the chest itself: Look very carefully around the lifting handles and around the lock and the latches. I've seen the Union Steel Chest name stamped on the hardware. It's usually stamped on the mounting plate, not on the handle itself.

Keep us posted on your research into the pink whetstone. If it isn't synthetic ruby, it might be in a different class of pink-colored stones that are used to hone carbides.

The pen-like object in drawer #3 looks like it might be a holder for a white abrasive polishing rod. If this is what I think it is, its a very gentle abrasive used in fine work.

John Ruth

Well, it could be a synthetic ruby stone. I have read that arkansaw stone can come in pink, but this stone is quite an unnatural pink. I finally found a site selling a stone near identical to min, but slightly thinner for about $150.. Ouch..

about half way down:
http://www.shorinternational.com/sharp&true.htm

Guess I could try it on a piece of glass. That may be a decent test to see what it is made of.

I think that pen like thing is actually diamond scribe or truing tool. its in a "general tool" brand scriber handle. its like a piece of diamond inset in aluminum or something like one of my stone truing diamonds are.

As you can see in some of the pics a few of the ground tools have a bit of "surface rust" on them. I have a platers wheel, which is a wire brush on the bench grinder with super fine .003" stainless wires. Think this would be ok to clean them up? Or is there a better way?

I think that pen like thing is actually diamond scribe or truing tool. its in a "general tool" brand scriber handle. its like a piece of diamond inset in aluminum or something like one of my stone truing diamonds are.

Click to expand...

That's a carbide tipped scriber.

http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMPXNO=2079704&PMT4NO=11406366

Synthetic ruby and aluminum oxide are the same thing. What makes natural ruby red is a trace of chromium in the aluminum oxide that has no effect on the abrasive properties.

Aluminum oxide wheels and stones are whatever color the maker wants them to be. The color is simply dye and a white aluminum oxide wheel is no different than a ruby colored one in elemental composition. There is also no standard as to what color means or if it even means anything at all. All aluminum oxide wheels are ruby wheels regardless of the color. Not all pink wheels are ruby or aluminum oxide. The color of most abrasives in stones and wheels is arbitrary, especially if they are red, green or blue.

You know thats kind of what I thought. Since ruby and sapphire ar both corundums which are Al203 plus a dopant (I think chromium for red?)

So why are these stones so darned expensive? Niche market?

Ruby sounds expensive. My wife will gladly take whatever you are willing to pay because it sounds expensive, and she does. She is GM of an abrasives distributing company.

[added]

I have a wall full of wheels just hanging around waiting to be used. All colors too. CBN and diamond too. Having a wife in the business is very handy. She also deals in diamond and carbide inserts.