Old Taft Peirce Machinist/Toolmaker Gizmo

[ritestuff]

Anybody got any idea what the hell this thing is? it's an older Taft Peirce tool. It has a plate on it with a part number of 12-1959-876 but nothing turns up in searches. I got it mixed in with a hoard of machinist tooling. It has a weird plug that I assume plugs into some type of "reader", or other component.

 

[dr_clyde]

Looks like a reader head for a comparison gage. You'd attach the cord to a screen/display/dial of some kind and it would read out plus or minus a number off a set zero.

Its for checking parts off a production line. Quality labs would use these to measure samples from a run, or to compare parts from a batch. Too fussy and time consuming to use for one or two parts.

 

[dr_clyde]

Without the display head, its not much use.

 

[Big_John]

It looks like an ancient precision comparator.

You would stack gage blocks to the size you want and compare the size to whatever you are measuring. It might be able measure down to millionths of an inch, but more likely to 10 millionths.

There should be a readout with it. Most likely with an analog dial on it.

It's a boat anchor at this point in its life.

 

[ritestuff]

Thanks. I pretty much had assumed that it was obsolete and pretty much useless. Was just curious as to what it was.

 

[jeeper46]

There used to be hundreds,if not thousands of those scattered all over my plant on gage tables and inspection areas.

 

[Doug Arthurs]

Tom Lipton at Oxtool probably has one or needs one. If you worked out a way to mount a regular dial indicator to it it may be handy for comparing parts again.