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King-Way alignment wear

pbanderson

Plastic
Joined
Mar 24, 2016
Location
Seattle WA
I purchased a King-Way 200 alignment tool (hard to find) used and upon inspection noticed the chrome plating flaking on some of the contact points that get a lot of use. Particularly the end of the ball slide, and the contact points of the channel slide bar. Will they affect the accuracy of unit? Would some diamond honing to smooth out the edges of the plating be an effective remediation?
https://photos.app.goo.gl/g5o3CCnjRxy7okQ28
https://photos.app.goo.gl/KXF7D8KHczLemnen8
 
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I would think about that in terms of HOW wear might provide inaccurate readings. For instance, if the base of the ball could wear a couple tenths in riding from one end of the way to the other end, the readings in between would all be off as material wore away. Personally, I wouldn't expect that kind of wear on one feature of one machine. But there's a good practice to identify even problems like that by always returning to the starting point to see that the measurement returns to zero. Other than wear, a dial indicator could jiggle out of position or be sticky in changing readings so there is more than one way for errors to creep in besides instrument wear, but you should be aware of different potentials and have a way of verifying or canceling errors out.

Short answer, stone parts if it makes you feel better but I don't think it will be a problem for you.
 
Thank you for your time and comment.

I do not think I need to be concerned about the wear of the bare steel in a single job reducing accuracy. Maybe I am wrong. My Concern is how true (parallel and radius) do the bearing edges on the channel slide bar need to be. Stoning on a diamond plate to smooth edges of the chrome plating is a bit of material to remove.

On the ball making some sort of lap to smooth out imperfections could affect the seat of the ball in the ring. Thereby, if the ring rotated in moving giving a false reading. Am i over worrying this as well? There are some very small imperfections in the sides of the ball where lightly bumped. Not abuse but just having a long and useful life.

I am not sure if the following is a legitimate concern, if the edge of the chipped plating is very close to the bearing point on the ball or channel, it makes for a sharp corner to bear on. If that edge happens to fall in a hole (scraped or otherwise) would it make a significant false reading?
 
I'm no pro but IMHO your over thinking it a bit

Yes debur you're new tool and use it

I think you will find that it works great at what it was designed to do (measure the parallelism of ways ect)

And unless you're machine is in near new condition a .0001 indicator is a waist of time on a king way type tool

On the few machines that I have inspected this they were out .010+ easy

But I have seen a photo of a washer looking piece in between the way and the ball to keep it out of a hole i suppose

I guess what I trying to say is use the tool to get really familiar with the condition of the machine that way when you do get a noisy reading from a hole or scratch ect you can easily recognize it

Ps have any photos of your new tool?
 
I my humble opinion.... The King way level is mainly used to "compare" readings...I use mine to read pionts along the ways and compare the sum of the readings. I don't believe chrome flaking off will effect the way I use this level. John Fahnestock
J&L Scraping Service.

Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk
 
^^^ I’m just not one of the “in” crowd ;-)

Joking aside, while I would like to play with one, I can get by without.

Cheers,
L7
 
Thank you for all the input. I will use my new tool and enjoy. :-)

If "wear' makes you some sort of "paranoid", just re-engineer it a tad.

Alter it to ride on replaceable stock bearing balls and/or Carbide inserts for wear-shoes. No Chromium plating required.

Prolly won't even need to EVER replace those, actually.

It is meant for measuring. Not for hand-burnishing.

PS: Tubes are stiffer than rods for the same carry-about mass.

PPS: Triangulation exists to improve resistance to flex vs square corners.

PPPS: Cut-offs in Aluminium, Titanium, and Carbon-Fibre "honeycomb" can be had. Light and bitchin' stiff for their size and mass, all of those are.

PM members don't so much "duplicate" a King Way as improve on it.
 








 
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