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H+G Hörger & Gässler indicator stands

gregormarwick

Diamond
Joined
Feb 7, 2007
Location
Aberdeen, UK
For whatever reason I've found myself to be a sucker for premium indicator stands, I'm practically collecting them at this point...

I've commented previously about MP-Tec and Fisso as the "high end" alternative to the common Noga stands.

I just bought a couple of Hörger & Gässler stands from German ebay, I'd never heard of them before, never seen them mentioned on here. They are not available anywhere here in the UK.

I bought one "normal" sized one (300mm radius) and one massive one (550mm radius).

I'm really impressed with these. They are cheaper than Fisso, practically half the price of a similar sized MP-Tec. The arm is very lightweight and the hydraulic lock is extremely rigid, and the fine adjuster is pretty solid with good sensitivity, better then the Fisso.

The MP-Tec still has the best fine adjuster, but otherwise I'd say these are probably the best all round indicator stand I've used so far, and amazing value for money compared to Fisso and MP-Tec.

Hörger & Gässler
 
What surprises me is that their website is only in German.

It is though between Stuttgart and Munich so they have potentially 100 million "nearby" that speak German daily.
 
What surprises me is that their website is only in German.

It is though between Stuttgart and Munich so they have potentially 100 million "nearby" that speak German daily.

True, but it seems strange that they'd willingly limit their market potential like that.

They don't seem to have any interest in selling abroad, as best as I can tell. They seem to be a long established company, so it's not like they're new and haven't sorted it out yet.

There are no UK agents, and I couldn't find any German suppliers that shipped outside Germany.

Both the ones I bought I had to look for on ebay.de specifically, and ask the seller if they would send to the UK.

It's a similar story with MP-Tec actually, both of mine came from ebay.de as well.

Fisso do have a UK agent, but they are priced such that I can't believe they sell many.
 
Several (logical?) reasons as to why they do what they do.

1. Maybe the owner doesn't want to be bigger than they are. It is a family business.

2. There was a recent thread about a German company that wouldn't sell to a non EU country. That would mean more paperwork than many like.

3. When I looked at where they are located (Google Earth) they're in a very small town so probably the owner is happy with things as they are.

I've visited that area a few times and it's very "German". That isn't meant in a negative sense, they just are. Even the way they dress. Their food
( Swabian German - Wikipedia ) is special too and I like it :)

Sontheim - Wikipedia

The city of Ulm is very close.
YouTube
 
I think (IMO) it is odd someone would want or need a "high end" indicator mount, but to be fair you did say you somewhat collect them so...

Anyhow, I think the Noga is perfectly fine for any work I have used them with. What I have seen with them is people tend to crank the crap out of the locking knob which then deteriorates it's holding power (or stretching the internals?) at a much faster than normal rate.
 
I think (IMO) it is odd someone would want or need a "high end" indicator mount, but to be fair you did say you somewhat collect them so...

Anyhow, I think the Noga is perfectly fine for any work I have used them with. What I have seen with them is people tend to crank the crap out of the locking knob which then deteriorates it's holding power (or stretching the internals?) at a much faster than normal rate.

Yes, the mechanical lock arms get ruined that way. The hydraulic ones less so.

Of course you can get along just fine with a noga or whatever else. Like anything else it's kind of hard to appreciate the value of a thing compared to another similar thing until you've had hands on. I'd not like to go back to using a noga now.

The biggest benefit of the better arms over a noga is that they don't flex when you touch the fine adjuster, and the sensitivity of the fine adjuster is vastly better, so adjusting to zero is much easier and faster.

Also they droop way less when you invert them.
 
Yes, the mechanical lock arms get ruined that way. The hydraulic ones less so.
How are the hydraulic arms constructed? I took one apart that was sold as Hydraulic, it was completely mechanical inside.

The weak spot is often the hinge in the center, it moves until the knob is tightened way beyond what the end pivots need. I had one with a nice friction washer there that was way better then any others I've had, temps me to experiment with washers on Nogas. In my spare time of course.
 
How are the hydraulic arms constructed? I took one apart that was sold as Hydraulic, it was completely mechanical inside.

The weak spot is often the hinge in the center, it moves until the knob is tightened way beyond what the end pivots need. I had one with a nice friction washer there that was way better then any others I've had, temps me to experiment with washers on Nogas. In my spare time of course.

I haven't had any of my hydraulic arms fully apart.

They don't just fall apart when you take the knob off like the mechanical ones do.

When you take the knob off there is a plunger underneath it, so you can use your imagination from there.

I only have a couple of hydraulic ones, the H+G and a couple of cheap no brand chinese ones. They each appear to operate on a similar principle, the knob just pushes the plunger in when you tighten it. They all lock the arm up without fully tightening the knob, and they all can tension the arm up gradually rather than being either locked or loose. The cheap ones sag quite badly under their own weight but are perfectly usable in stationary use say on a lathe.

The Fisso and MP-Tec arms I have are mechanical, but are designed and built to a very high standard, such that I don't think they could be damaged or worn out like it's possible to do with noga and the like. They also don't sag and lock very smoothly and positively, so I wouldn't say that hydraulic is necessarily better, build quality matters more than the specific mechanism.
 
When you take the knob off there is a plunger underneath it, so you can use your imagination from there.

My imagination is failing me. The ones i've had apart also all have a plunger under the knob, the plunger has a wedge that pushes on a rod running the length of the arm, that rod pushes against the ball and socket on the end. Is there anything different in the hydraulic arms, or are they just finished better?
 
My imagination is failing me. The ones i've had apart also all have a plunger under the knob, the plunger has a wedge that pushes on a rod running the length of the arm, that rod pushes against the ball and socket on the end. Is there anything different in the hydraulic arms, or are they just finished better?

The plunger is a hydraulic piston, presumably a simple master-slave configuration. I don't doubt that they are in fact hydraulic and not mechanical, but I don't really intend to dismantle any of them unless I have reason to! The manual talks about them leaking and needing refilled if you let them get warm for a duration of time while clamped.

On the page that Sco_27 linked to above you can click on any of the hydraulic ones and see a list of spares, including the hydraulic plunger and seal kits.

Like you say, on the mechanical ones it's just a wedge that's pulled in by the knob. I know this because I've had several in the past that I've needed to take apart.

The MP-Tec ones have a clearly different mechanism to that however, but again I haven't dismantled one to see how it works. I've had that apart to the extent of separating the arms to clean and oil the needle roller thrust bearing under the knob.

The locking mechanism on those is completely retained inside each arm, you'd have to take the ends off to remove them. There is no wedge in the centre, but compression pads on each arm that get squeezed when you tighten the clamp. The actual amount of movement on the pads is minute.
 








 
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