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scraping - cast iron straght edge from China?

dsymes

Plastic
Joined
Aug 19, 2010
Location
WA, USA
Does anyone on the forum have experience ordering a cast iron straight edge or other tools from the Shanghai Chenghua Machinery Co., Ltd? I did some searching and there are a number of firms in India and China that make finished camelback and parallel side straight edges. I've been in contact with Shanghai Chenghua and their prices seem very reasonable, even with shipping included. Surely I can't be the only one who has explored this possibility? I'd appreciate hearing any stories that might be relevant.

Thanks,
dsymes
 
Sounds great if the metallurgy, stability, and heat treatment is up to snuff. Good scraped tooling is hard to find - any that are affordable that is.

So-o-o-o next step is how do you get them from country of origin to the US. All yet to be determined I imaging but that's not an insurmountable opstacle. I had a hassle getting some 40 position tool holders from Wuchan to the US and they had an export organization.

One caveat is be prepared to immediately check them with your flat reference every month or two for the next few years. New scraped tooling can drift a little and touch up scraping is accaptable for camelbacks anytime you find a hollow or a hump.

Anyway, nothing substantial to contribute but caveats so good luck.
 
It's not really been discussed on PM. There was a thread a couple months back on Deckel forum in which a member was going to get quotes on an item from India, but I don't think he ever posted final results of his inquiries to the Indian company.

It probably isn't discussed because there isn't significant demand for these tools in the US. Other than hobbyists, probably almost zero demand. There are not many rebuilders left, and virtually no one starting such a business. The ones that exist have had the tools for many years (decades for most)

There is a little demand from hobbyists, and even a few people on PM have cast small runs of tools, so there are a handful of people here who would be interested to hear about real experience with buying from China or India I think.
 
Forrest - "next step is how do you get them from country of origin to the US."

Well, today I phoned customs and was told that there was no duty. I was quoted a price of $96 by Shanghai Chenghua, shipping by FedEx or UPS included, for a 200mm camelback straight edge (I know, it's just from a baby camel, but then, I thought it would be kinda cute and also would let me find out if this would work ok). I then phoned FedEx, who told me that they would broker it through customs at no additional fee - just what they charge the shipper. I don't entirely trust that undertaking since I returned a camera by FedEx to an unscrupulous ebay seller in England a few years ago and he screamed to high heaven about being dinged 30 pounds for brokerage fees - I was very sympathetic... not!

I will need to pay by international wire which is $25 from my Schwab account. My take is that there is some risk that I will see nothing for my $96 + $25, or that there will be some unforseen fees, but it seems like a risk worth taking. If it works out, they also have 500mm and 1,000mm straight edges for not all that much more (although I would expect the shipping to be significantly greater). I will keep y'all posted.

In the mean time I plan to obtain a Craig Donges 18" casting and also look into a 30" casting.

Incidentally, I hope this sounds like an very enthusiastic wannabe scraper to Forrest, and that he holds a class in the Seattle or Portland areas sometime soon. I will take some vacation time off from work whenever a class is held.

Douglas
 
I just received my 18" from Craig Donges. It is blanchard ground and ready for scraping. Cost was literally only a couple dollars more that what you've been quoted and no import drama. The one Craig sent me certainly looks exceptional. I know that GBent has ground some straight edges out there, but IIRC he said he did not do the ones for Craig.

Glen, you may want to verify your source, cost and experience with the straight edges.
 
I machined up one of Craig’s 18” dovetail / camel backs for a fellow Aussie member just last week. That was a good casting. It’s still sitting out there on my surface plate. I’m taking quite a liking to it.

Phil.
 
@mark

I started down this path a while ago, with JASH in India. A parallel search has turned up a hot lead on a 500mm B&S camel back. Still looking for Prisms.

Here's what I learned.

------------------

Indian Standards: Straightedges IS:5268 - word doc from GoogleDocs
Camel Backs: Camel Backs - pdf from GoogleDocs
Boxes and Prisms: Prismatic straight edges - pdf file from GoogleDocs

What I was quoted *single unit pricing.

“JASH” Cast Iron Straight Edge, nominal sizes as under offered in Grade – 0, 1 & 2 accuracy, made from flask cooled gray iron casting conforming to grade FG – 220 of IS: 210, having hardness between 170 to 220 BHN, made generally as per IS: 5268 / 1991, to be supplied with calibration certificate traceable to N P L / C M T I.

I Section, (Parallel Type)

Nominal Size (mm) 800 x 30 x 80

Grade - 0 (3µ) $ 359
Grade - 1 (6µ) $ 287
Grade - 2 (10µ) $ 256

Nominal Size (mm) 1000 x 35 x 100

Grade - 0 (5µ) $ 453
Grade - 1 (10µ) $ 339
Grade - 2 (20µ) $ 296

Camel Back, (Bow shape Type)

Nominal Size (mm) 800 x 40 x 175

Grade - 0 (3µ) $ 340
Grade - 1 (6µ) $ 280
Grade - 2 (10µ) $ 254

Nominal Size (mm) 1000 x 45 x 180

Grade - 0 (5µ) $ 411
Grade - 1 (10µ) $ 334
Grade - 2 (20µ) $ 308

Terms:
Prices: FOB Mumbai (INDIA), duly packed in sea worthy packing and fumigated. Prices are inclusive of crate type wooden box.

Delivery Period: Offered item / quantity shall be ready for inspection / despatch at our works within 16 Weeks after receipt of Techno - Commercially clear firm order or advance, whichever is received later. Our endeavor shall be however to expedite the delivery period as soon as possible, but no commitment at the moment since this period is on the basis of current Production Planning ... Contd. on page 2 of 2 ...

-------------

I hope that is a help for someone.
Cheers
<jbc>
 
Steven Thomas who appears here every now and then made a pattern for a really excellent 30" dovetail camelback. 30" is a handy size. It's long enough to do a milling table in two prints and will be stable ovehanging most saddles and knees. The beauty of this tool is the dovetail portion has a lot of section so if all you need is a plain straightedge you can machine it to suit. If you wish something specially configured for a particular project you have sufficient stock for that too. He sells (or did) raw castings and planed for scraping but I don't think he offers finished items. You don't want to pay the going rate for a US scraper hand anyway. I'd prefer to scrape it myself anyway.

He's made a number of straight edge castings. I've handled a lot of straightedge in my day and for stiffness, light weight, and convenience in size the Steven Thomas 30" straight edge is hard to beat. He got it all right.

Maybe he will chime in. I hope so. He's a woodworker therefore fun to pick on.
 
results

Well, the results are in. I received the little 200mm (8 inch) straight edge promptly, with proper paperwork so that it was cleared through customs without any delay or fees.

I'm disappointed with the straight edge, not so much because the casting is quite ugly, but the scraped surface appears to my novice eyes to be of poor and uneven quality. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

ChineseSE2.jpg


ChineseSE1.jpg


Oddly, my contact, Ms. Kerry Jiang at the Shanghai Chenghua Machinery Co, offered to ship the straight edge on a 50% deposit, with the balance due on approval. However, since my bank charges $25 for an international wire transfer, that would have raised the total bank charges to $50 on a $100 item - it seemed like paying an additional $25 to for a possible $50 benefit.

I have not yet written back to Ms. Jiang, but will do so shortly - if the response is interesting I will post it.

dsymes
 
Did you buy this small of an item just as a test of the manufacturer, or did you actually want an 8" straight edge?

8" does not require camel back to remain flat. If you need only 8", you could just buy a piece of cast iron stock of suitable size for about half the price. You have to scrape it yourself of course, but something that small is not more than an hour's work (assuming you're equipped to scrape of course)
 
It's a cake silly! Happy Birthday!

Call around your local machine shops, that's how I got mine. Somebody has one sitting on a shelf collecting dust. I got a helluva deal too.
 
Good thing I check some of these posts!;)

Forrest, thanks for the endorsement.
I also know Doug has one of mine, and is doing valuable research on the import question for the community.

Doug, i know you have one of my lightweights, and that we also discussed the imports. Hope you are not having problems with mine? It is worth knowing, if you are. I think we also discussed 18" parallel fitters straight edges, and my difficulty getting round to-its.

As of last week, I don't have anymore castings for sale. I am trying to decide whether to go through the headache of ordering another batch. If i decide to go through it all again, I also need to consider whether to keep on having the heavies cast. I think they serve a need, but the lightweights sold much faster. The LW's can only be cut down to 50° (49-1/2°)BP angles. The heavies can be cut down to 45° (44-1/2° )

As Forrest mentioned, these were originally decided at 30" net, so they could be machined on a 42" table BP or clone, and still be about long enough to use to rescrape the machine itself. The width and thickness were decided by the column ways. So these are not light castings, at least in the "heavy" version. It is nice to have in addition a 42" or 4' Brown & Sharpe type "camelback" (non-dovetail) to span the full length of the ways, and because at ~28 lbs, the B & S 48" is lighter than my "heavy" 30" dovetail version. It is nice to have both.

After thermal stress relief
smt_straightedgecastings1.jpg


planed
smt_straightedgecastings20.jpg


Section, "lightweight" vs "heavy"

smt_straightedgecastings19.jpg


smt_straightedgecastings18.jpg


smt_straightedgecastings6.jpg


smt
 
Did you buy this small of an item just as a test of the manufacturer, or did you actually want an 8" straight edge?

I purchased it mostly as a test to see if I wanted to get a 500mm and a 1 meter from the same company - although I was also looking into geting the larger camelbacks from US sources, which is what I did. I found an 18 inch casting at the annual model engineering show in Portland OR for a very good price which also had pleasing proportions, and as Stephen noted, I bought a lightweight casting from him although I haven't had time to get started on it yet - I don't have the benefit of a power scraper, although I did get to use one at Richard King's workshop in Okland CA last month.

The other reason I got it was to see what kind of practical problems I would have in buying direct from an Asian company on a really small purchase. I'm a great fan of free trade and wanted to do a little experiment. Just because it was disappointing in this instance doesn't mean I'm joining the flat earth contingent.

Thanks for all the the suggestions and comments.

Douglas
 
Moderators must be asleep on this topic
Don must have worn out a keyboard or two by now, explaining the definition of "home shop grade" Asian machine tools. There’s no 3 in 1 combo machine’s being discussed in this thread. Just the mention of the word “China” doesn’t necessarily mean an automatic lock.


Phil
 
Well, the results are in. I received the little 200mm (8 inch) straight edge promptly, with proper paperwork so that it was cleared through customs without any delay or fees.

I'm disappointed with the straight edge, not so much because the casting is quite ugly, but the scraped surface appears to my novice eyes to be of poor and uneven quality. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

ChineseSE2.jpg


ChineseSE1.jpg


Oddly, my contact, Ms. Kerry Jiang at the Shanghai Chenghua Machinery Co, offered to ship the straight edge on a 50% deposit, with the balance due on approval. However, since my bank charges $25 for an international wire transfer, that would have raised the total bank charges to $50 on a $100 item - it seemed like paying an additional $25 to for a possible $50 benefit.

I have not yet written back to Ms. Jiang, but will do so shortly - if the response is interesting I will post it.

dsymes

I know this is an absolutely ancient thread but I've been looking everywhere for a dovetail straight edge long enough to spot the ways on my stanko Mill without having to overlap, the longest knife edge SE I have is 48" and my mills table is 52"

I've still got just under a month under my plate gets here so I'm not in a huge hurry. I was actually considering buying a Chinese SE until I saw that picture of the Chinese casting, it's completely put me off the idea. Surely someone in australia has a 5ft dovetail straight edge they want to sell or trade?
 








 
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