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ot--metrology--decade long debacle---the revenge of NIST

JHOLLAND1

Titanium
Joined
Oct 8, 2005
Location
western washington state
recently I purchased two involute gear measuring machines from Boeing--the only bidder at $24.99---a 21 inch Fellows and 24 inch Illinois Tool Works

Boeing kindly included stacks of documents--and from these a difficult to believe tale of 10 year default by our federal government to provide benchmark metrology services for advanced manufacturing of precision gears

in 1986 the National Bureau of Standards gear metrology instruments fell apart--the 3 million usd needed to replace vintage tools was not authorized until 1996--
1988 witnessed transformation of NBS to NIST--National Institute of Standards and Technology
Nist response to non-availability of standardizing gear master gauges was---send them to England or Germany
and that was protocol for 10 years
with adequate funding and a building full of non-contact state of art laser gauging tools--Nist in 1996 resurrected gear gauging---with eye popping fees--example--rotary table calibration is now billed in 30 degree arc increments---$3529.00 or $42,348 for a full turn of the table
when the service was re-established in 1996--Boeing was first in line to have
involute masters supplied by Fellows and ITW calibrated---which was followed by certifiable documentation of Boeings own stock of 1600 master spline involute standards

pics include glossys of ITW machine which I am now converting to radius grinder for cutting tools--image of spline master with microscope in Boeing facility--these two machines were repeatable to 0.0001 in and cost 25K and 28K in 1965-66
 

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pics illustrate certificate from Oak Ridge--Lockheed Martin metrology of Boeing involute master--Fellows

4 hours after arriving at my facility--skeletal remains ;)
 

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Wow, nice buys!

I have an optical polygon (eight sides), I'm afraid I'll not be getting it certed at that price (although it's more reasonable than the rotary table pricing - could that be a misprint?).
 
pics illustrate involute masters supplied by machine makers

right hand master--referred to as an artifact--is Fellows 6 degree

left hand artifact --cylindrical--is used to calibrate ITW device

baseline involute calibration begins at 6 degrees and progresses to 39 degrees in increments of one quarter /one third degree

build quality of these units is finest I have encountered--in keeping with needed repeatability

both base units will be re-configured for tool-cutter grinding
 

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