Featherweight Straight Edge Availability and Prices---Very Reasonable

I guess some folks have been looking for straight edge castings. I am sure, if they are shopping on eBay, they will see that mine are in stock much of the time there, but, it is true that I have been having a challenge casting them fast enough to keep them in stock. I am doing my best.

If another thread recently references another maker as being reasonably priced, mine are very reasonably priced. Having designed and made my own patterns, put together my own small foundry, and not having to pay someone to cast for me allows me to keep prices down and keep a casting-by-casting eye on quality control.

For instance, my 36 Precision MACHINED camelback, not raw, costs 45 dollars less than the other guy's 36 raw and my raw 36 casting is 235 dollars less and is presently in stock. My 26 prism/parallel/level/straight edge multitool is 45 less than his 24 conventional camelback and I have one in stock.. And my 18" multitool is only 45 more than his 18 conventional camelback. I have one in stock that I will be amchining and will be casting more next week. And then there is shipping. I have figured out how to get everything up through the 36" size to US customers for less than 50 dollars and for the 8" prism it is only 9 dollars and the 18 is only 22. Those castings look so heavy that shipping must be a bundle.

Not to mention I have been giving a 10% discount to established participating PM members on direct sales (not eBay) and a 30% discount to encourage participating PM member-students who are just getting into scraping as a new adventure.

Right now I am properly heat treating for stress relief three 36" raw casting all cast in the last 10 days---one this morning. I have one 26" raw casting in stock and one 18 I will be machining. I have only one 8 that is machined and no raw castings. I expect to cast 8's in the next couple weeks.

I have always appreciated the support and positive feedback I have received over the years from this group since I first designed, fabricated the pattern, and cast my own 36" straight edge in 2016.

Denis

can you send me some pictures and prices please

Justin

Justin_Terry said:

can you send me some pictures and prices please

Justin

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Justin,

I think I will suggest going to eBay and searching on "Featherweight Straight Edge." That way I do not have to duplicate the descriptions and photos that are there. I presently have 48" and 36" camel backs listed and you will also see an 8 and 18" prism listed. Some are "sold out" and are listed with very high prices so that no one will buy them but I can still let folks know they are part of my line of straight edges. Not listed is my 26" prism that is quite similar in general design to the 18 but is longer a bit larger.

The raw casting prices are
48 is 470
36 is 350
26 is 280
18 is 210
8 is 74

Shipping is 50 dollars for the 48, 36, and 26 and 22 for the 18" and 9 for 8"

If you have difficulty finding adequate info as suggested, please let me know.

I am casting a couple of 8's in the next couple days and also an 18. SO, by mid week those should be back in stock. I am trying to keep stuff in stock, but am also in the middle of upgrading my furnace and making a few tweaks to the lifting equipment. The foundry requires constant maintenance as iron melting temps are pretty punishing for the furnace.

Thanks for your interest. Let me know if you need more.


Denis

After having been out of stock for 10 days or so, I have just cast five 8" prisms this morning. These are my most frequent sellers since,besides being a very handy and versatile scraping tool for smaller projects like compounds and cross slides, they make a great learning-to-scrape project as they involve flat (sole) scraping, intersecting plane (45 deg face) scraping, right angle (back) scraping, and parallel (top rail) scraping. They came out really nice. I cut the gates and risers off this afternoon and ground off any seam roughness. Now they are being properly heat treated and will be ready to go in the AM. They sell for a "very reasonable" 74 dollars plus 9 dollars shipping via Priority Mail which delivers anywhere in the US within 3 working days. I will machine 3 of them as a lot of people want them machined which adds 90 to the cost. That includes the cutting the sole, 45 (+/-30 secs) degree face, back, and top rail all very flat and parallel. I also clean up the ends. They are, like all my castings, uniformly soft and free of voids or slag---guaranteed

I'll be casting a couple 18's late this week.

Denis

And now I have two raw 18's and 3 machined ones as well. One of the machined 18's is to be picked by a local PMer up Friday.

So, I have raw 8's, 18's, 26's, 36's, and 48"s at the present time. Two 36's are pending machining and are sold but I still have one additional raw. One 26 will soon be machined but there will still be a raw one. It is a challenge for me to keep castings in stock and keep track of who wants what. But somehow it seems to work out. The process and product keeps improving with fewer casting that have to be remelted Hate remelts! And, at least to date, no returned castings or complaint of any kind.

Denis

I got one of the 8s and one of the 18s. Picked it up in person. They look great! Thank you!

metalmagpie

Those were machined. The top rail was less than .001 out of parallel with the soles. And the faces were within a thou of flat. Did my best (as usual) for you.

Good to see the Magpie in person again. Good parking lot chat about metrology questions. Good times.

Denis

dgfoster said:

Those were machined. The top rail was less than .001 out of parallel with the soles. And the faces were within a thou of flat. Did my best (as usual) for you.

Good to see the Magpie in person again. Good parking lot chat about metrology questions. Good times.

Denis

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Yup, I put them on the surface plate and tried a .0015" feeler gage everywhere. Never went underneath. That's a lot better machining than my crappy mill will do!

metalmagpie

metalmagpie said:

Yup, I put them on the surface plate and tried a .0015" feeler gage everywhere. Never went underneath. That's a lot better machining than my crappy mill will do!

metalmagpie

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Yes my rough and ready test that they have to pass is that I take a 0015 piece of shim stock and put it on all corners and then try to slip a .002 under and it should not go. That is a rough way of estimating that they’re flat to less than .001 and probably even .0005. I also test the corners with .0015 at the center and opposite corner to see it does not go.

BTW, I am melting iron right now intending to pour four 8” prisms as I am sold out of raw 8’s again.

Denis

I bought one each 8 and 26" prism castings from Dennis about a year ago. I havent had the chance yet to machine them but i can say the castings look great and Dennis did a great job packing and shipping them quick, fast and in a hurry. I bought the 26 to get into the cross slide dovetail on my monarch 16CY but it'll require machining a bunch of the back of the casting off for clearance. The casting is so good, i don't think i can bring myself to hacking into it just to make a specialty tool for a one-time job. I might just buy a chunk of durabar for the monarch job and reserving Dennis' 26" casting for a proper 26" straightedge.

I just shipped a raw 48" camelback to a PMer in Utah via UPS simple rate. Because of the light weight design of the SE, I was able to put it in a thin wood box inside a cardboard box and still be 4 pounds under the 50 pound weight limit. And by being very careful on sizing the box I JUST barely made it under the 1 cu ft volume limit. Probably saved a hundred dollars in shipping that way. He will be providing me some feedback on the condition of the box on arrival. To maximize the strength of the wood box, I glued and screwed it together. This is the first 48 to be shipped via Simple Rate. Also a plus is that we expect delivery on in 2 days on Wednesday after I just dropped it off today. That is faster than expected.

Simple rate did not exist when I designed the 48. But, had it been 1" taller or 1/2" wider or 4 pounds heavier, Simple Rate would not have been an option. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart! ;-)

Denis

I talked to the 48 camelback purchaser in Utah. The package arrived yesterday completely intact! I was surprised and relieved. I expected at least one corner of the box to have been caved-in. But, nope, UPS got it there with no signs of any handling damage to the box or cardboard covering the wooden box. He did note the only way to open the box was with a pry-bar. He was right. It was glued and srewed together due to the scant size of wood the inner box was constructed from. I'll be using this method in the future to ship 48's. I am sure not all boxes will make it in mint condition. But I think they will make it with the casting undamaged even if the box takes a few lumps (as designed and expected) along the way.

Denis.

dgfoster said:

I talked to the 48 camelback purchaser in Utah. The package arrived yesterday completely intact! I was surprised and relieved. I expected at least one corner of the box to have been caved-in. But, nope, UPS got it there with no signs of any handling damage to the box or cardboard covering the wooden box. He did note the only way to open the box was with a pry-bar. He was right. It was glued and srewed together due to the scant size of wood the inner box was constructed from. I'll be using this method in the future to ship 48's. I am sure not all boxes will make it in mint condition. But I think they will make it with the casting undamaged even if the box takes a few lumps (as designed and expected) along the way.

Denis.

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I happened to be there when it arrived. I think the packaging would have survived being dragged across the plains! And I especially liked that I can actually lift it.

You’ll like it even more when you’ve spotted with it for the twentieth time that day. ;-)

L7

Well, I did get dinged for a 20.50 dollar surcharge from UPS as one side of the package was greater than 48" length. Kinda hard to make a box on a 48" SE that would be less than 48" length! Nevertheless, shipping was still a bargain compared to more standard UPS rates. I think we still saved at least 75 dollars and getting the 46 pound package delivered 1000 miles away two days following shipment (shipped on Monday and delivered Wed) is remarkable.

Denis

DgFoster 18” Straightedge

I just received an 18” SE from Denis today. I had him machine it, as I am working on my knee mill, so didn’t get a raw casting. He was helpful in answering any questions I had.
The casting appears flawless. The machining appears top shelf, I have not checked flatness nor parallelism yet. I have freshly surfaced granite plates, so will do so soon, then commence hand scraping w/a Biax hand tool, w/60 radius carbide. There are virtually no visible flaws, voids or inclusions.
I am new to the craft so won’t weigh in on best configuration, deflection, thermal change etc. However, I am very happy with the SE he shipped me. It was packaged in a bullet proof flat rate wooden crate. Denis took pains to avoid it shifting or being chipped in transit. The price was reasonable, and transaction quick. It arrived on my door within a few days of emailing him.
If you are in the market for an SE, I think you might be hard pressed to find a better value, pending your specific needs.
If anyone is interested, I will attempt to post pics and measurements as the project progresses. Thought I’d share for those who are curious.
Happy Customer

I am interested in seeing the progress of your knee mill project.

Just ordered an 18" straight edge for my first scraping project. Looking forward to completing this one so that I can get a few more.

CDR243 said:

Just ordered an 18" straight edge for my first scraping project. Looking forward to completing this one so that I can get a few more.

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Oh, I got the order on eBay but did not know you were on PM. Thank you for your purchase, I’ll make its wood box and slide into large USPS Priority FRBox this morning.

Yesterday, during record cold snap here, I poured a really nice-looking 48. But mid-melt my furnace started to misbehave for reasons that were alarming but not at all evident. I could see that the compressed air pressure was varying erratically---a problem never before encountered. Then the pressure just went nearly to zero despite the old-American thumper compressor pressure being normal at 150. I grabbed a wrench and yanked off the pressure regulator at the furnace and found it was full of ice from water/ice in the main line. Luckily, I had a spare at hand and quickly put it on. Then I placed the regulator about a foot away from the furnace so that radiant heat would prevent ice build up and I made sure to open the mainline vent every few mins to flush out any water/ice before it got to the regulator. After that, the melt went just fine. Kinda exciting as it was unfolding though. Having the furnace go cold with a crucible of melted iron in it would have broken the crucible and could have made a mess in the furnace.

Here is the ice in the regulator:

Frost on everything more than six feet from the furnace. The furnace surface temp externally gets to about 500F. Iron melts at around 2200 and I pour at 2550F

The result---one of the nicest 48 cstings I've made!

A close up of the nameplate area.


I'll clean up the casting today and thermally stress relieve it.

Good times and thanks to you and everyone else for their patronage!

Denis

Awesome! Thanks for sharing... I should have ordered a 48