New to me anyway. Came with no history. Left behind in warehouse. New tenants worked around it for many years. As they grew, they needed the room and it was so heavy they waited and waited. Finally made arrangements and one of the employees took it. He called my cousin who then called me. He had two already. Its a 3x4x4.5" and weighs like 4 or 500 lbs. I'm not a machinist or metrologist. Just getting into wood working and am on a budget because im poor. Wanted to make as many of the tools as I could including straight edges. In the process of researching, a lot of videos came up about scraping and sanding and surface plates etc. I was fascinated with it all. Especially when I saw a vid of a hooby machinist getting his 3 plates redone. And how precise they can make them. I had bought some plate glass to line with sandpaper and started resurfacing some vintage planes then the plate just fell in my lap. Was going to buy some tools to check it. >003mm gauge and a block stand to slide it around. Quickly learned that isnt good enough. Can take it 50 miles to Standridge in SoCal for a B grade for 140 so decided to save up for that. And am just leaving it in my Jeep till i do. Its too heavy. Lol. Enough history. Oh. It came with a stand and cover. the stand has the 3 mounts that are adjustable. Place for adjuster or casters on leg bottoms. Cover had a name on but the plate had no tags. The name one cover is LMS or something and I called them. They are a distributer for Starrett plates. I looked up starrett and they have plates like mine. Black granite but there stands are different. and no 4.5" thickness. Mine could be really old and they may have offered those back then I dont know. Or maybe they just bought the cover seperately from LMS. Precision stands look more like what mine looks like. So I dont know. Would like to know and maybe standridge can I.D. it for me.
My question is, can I line it with sandpaper to flatten things. Straight edges. Planes and tools and whatever. I was going to protect the area not being used by masking paper over it to keep the sanding debri off it. My thought is since the nmaterial being surfaced is only contacting the paper and not the granit, it wont wear the plate. I am also aware that the debri is abbrasive and simply clean, wiping it off could cause wear. I want a reference table and I want to take care of it. But I need a dead flat surface to sand on. And for straight edges I will use the blue marking stuff on the table and drag them accross it and spin etc. Thinking that will wear it more than paper and sanding.
Thanks in advance.
My question is, can I line it with sandpaper to flatten things. Straight edges. Planes and tools and whatever. I was going to protect the area not being used by masking paper over it to keep the sanding debri off it. My thought is since the nmaterial being surfaced is only contacting the paper and not the granit, it wont wear the plate. I am also aware that the debri is abbrasive and simply clean, wiping it off could cause wear. I want a reference table and I want to take care of it. But I need a dead flat surface to sand on. And for straight edges I will use the blue marking stuff on the table and drag them accross it and spin etc. Thinking that will wear it more than paper and sanding.
Thanks in advance.