Reference source for minimum standards of precision?

[Lelandwelds]

Have you ever noticed some people don't get the concept of "good enough"? Such as new welders "needing" a Certiflat for a simple welding table? Or, (this performer of amazing work) lilscorpion taking the time to correct panels for counter tops like he did here?

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=381487&page=15

In the cold dark days of the Time Before the Internet, I would find a crusty old fart who had worked with "whatever" for forever and ask him. What is the modern equivalent?

I am not criticising but Rule 34 has taught me there is user group or SIG for everything possible. Is there a Garage Journal equivalent out there that loves to debate standards for everything from IP cameras to granite calibrated surfaces to amortization schedules?

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Your asking this question on a forum that has a constant ongoing debate of Harbor Freight vs Snap On..........


I'm a Snap On and Certiflat type of guy; neither are needed, but both make my life easier and my work faster.

 

[juiced10]

You mean the guys that buy $60,000 trucks to pick up a couple bags of mulch every spring? Good enough for me is in the end am I happy.,,...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[larry_g]

In the cold dark days of the Time Before the Internet, I would find a crusty old fart who had worked with "whatever" for forever and ask him. What is the modern equivalent?

Before this old fart had 'internet' I used BOOKS. They were available at the bookstore or the library. BTW they still are useful.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[kkroger]

Usually the minimum tolerances are on the blue print, determined far in advance. Then the builder gets to either CERTIFY their parts as being TRUE to print , then the end user gets to inspect them to print and either accept or reject. for the home builder you are doing it yourself, if you need it to be gnats *** precise then....

Most Decimal dims on prints are broken down these days into decimal places .** would be .015, .*** would be .005, .xxxx would be .0005, and this can be adjusted by the designer, I've got a GD&T (Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing) book around here somewhere. in our lab we had to be Twice as accurate as the print, to calibrate or test the gages and fixtures we made.

 

[nelstomlinson]

Before this old fart had 'internet' I used BOOKS. They were available at the bookstore or the library.

Can you recommend one of these BOOKS which might address the OP's question?

 

[bczygan]

One RCH is close enough for most stuff.

Bill

 

[Lelandwelds]

One RCH is close enough for most stuff.

Bill

I am racking my brain. Unsuccessfully. What is a RCH?

I used to get ridiculed in my youth for "book learnin". Now, I get grief for wanting to know more about the thing that killed book learning? BTW, do you have a big chaw in your mouth?

The thing about GJ is . . . You never know what the people here may know. I don't know what I don't know. And, I am casting a wide net. Shooting in the dark. But, . . .

I may learn something.

 

[bczygan]

I am racking my brain. Unsuccessfully. What is a RCH?

I used to get ridiculed in my youth for "book learnin". Now, I get grief for wanting to know more about the thing that killed book learning? BTW, do you have a big chaw in your mouth?

The thing about GJ is . . . You never know what the people here may know. I don't know what I don't know. And, I am casting a wide net. Shooting in the dark. But, . . .

I may learn something.

http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/rch

 

[larry_g]

Can you recommend one of these BOOKS which might address the OP's question?

The OP had a few questions in his post. Which question are you referring to?

This one

"for everything from IP cameras to granite calibrated surfaces to amortization schedules?"

Could be covered in a near infinite number of books. What precision do you need as your question is wide open?

lg
no neat sig line

 

[matt_i]

Wait, you don't park your car using a dial indicator???

Higher precision takes more time or more specialized machinery, hence more cost. Depends on one's wallet or their budget for shop time.

Hand-scraping surfaces is about as good as it gets, imo, and thankfully so. If one can dabble and master that then you can build or rebuild precision machinery that can be used to create other "good enough" things. Thankfully because if a precision machine could only be built by a higher-precision machine then advancing the standard could prove difficult....

To have a true understanding it helps to have actually built a few things. A bandsaw and a file are pretty good tools but then one sees these mills and lathes. Which are excellent tools and then one sees surface and ID-OD grinders and realizes how they can be employed.

In life one sometimes needs the mindset of a surgeon and other times the mindset of a butcher. The true skill is in gauging and determining where on the continuum to set the pathway forward.

 

[Sycan]

One RCH is close enough for most stuff.

Bill

My test subject was brunette not red, but 0.006" was the result.

 

[Lassen Forge]

There are books as such; you can also get white papers from places like the National Institute of Standards in Washington DC (Purveyors of those people who reset your internet clock WWV and WWVH (and WWVA)... Good books on Machining precision goods go into this subject pretty succinctly...

A lot of people on the internet believe in just good enough, or the LRCH standard... it all depends whether you're building machines to build machines that build turret lathes, or building a chicken coop. Some things demand accuracy in the millionths, others, quarter inch here or there ain't gonna make or break you.

I have a couple handbooks - one is Gieks Formulas (generally for mathematic issues up to advanced calculus), another is this little black book (Machinery's Handbook or somesuch) that gets into tolerances and tables and what's allowable where... I also have one I got as a gift that does the same thing, but was dated back in the 1870's...

I actually will look up books like that on the internet depending on what I'm doing... because sometimes that ancient knowledge trumps all.

 

[bczygan]

I once asked a carver of beautiful claw and ball feet, what techniques and precision tools he used to remove excess material and take the wood from rough stock to finished product.

He said, "I hack it off any way I can!"

Working as a machinist, we called most of our work, "Carpentry"! Because it was.

I would ask what spec. the measurement needed to be on many things. The answer was, "Plus or minus a hammer handle"!

Bill

 

[larry_g]

Isn't there a saying in the house building community that the framer works to a quarter inch, the carpenter works to an eighth inch, and the cabinet maker to a sixteenth of an inch? Each professional or tradesman works his own tolerances.

In my past employment we installed a precision 'mill' that weighed over 30,000 lbs. It floated on air and had a work envelope of about one inch square. They said it could slice off layers of molecules.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[kazlx]

It's also a forum that is centered around tools and working on things. Is it a surprise that people here like to buy nice tools? I don't care is some dude hates jigs, doesn't need no fancy table, and walked both ways up hill to school.

Bottom line is that being pretentious goes both ways. It gets just as old hearing about nobody don't need nothin' fancy as it is thinking you need a shop full of expensive tools to build cool stuff. There's guys that make something from nothing and there's guys that have $10k lifts in their garage to change their oil and show their friends how cool their 12 car garage is. The beauty of a place like this is you can see thousands of approaches and opinions and make up your own mind. Different strokes for different folks....

 

[sberry]

I have a mic but its a rare day I use one, pretty much the same for a torque wrench and even a drill press. Not working as a machinist but maintenance and construction, a tape measure gets most of it close enough. I wonder about the fascination with the bench too. Never found it that big of deal.

 

[kbs2244]

I remember working on a bricklayer friend’s garage build with another of his friends that was an assembly line machinist at Johnson Marine in Waukegan IL
It was a hip roof design and we were at the point of sheathing the rafters.
This guy called me over to check the joint in the sheathing at the diagonal rafter.
There was a 1/8-inch gap.
He asked me if it was OK.
I said it was fine.
He said "I am used to working to .005 tolerances."
My reply was "He isn't"

 

[dontlifttoshift]

I know of another machinist that re roofed his own house. It took him 4 years. He made a fixture to square every shingle. Every. Shingle.

 

[racingtadpole]

It's also a forum that is centered around tools and working on things. Is it a surprise that people here like to buy nice tools? I don't care is some dude hates jigs, doesn't need no fancy table, and walked both ways up hill to school.

Bottom line is that being pretentious goes both ways. It gets just as old hearing about nobody don't need nothin' fancy as it is thinking you need a shop full of expensive tools to build cool stuff. There's guys that make something from nothing and there's guys that have $10k lifts in their garage to change their oil and show their friends how cool their 12 car garage is. The beauty of a place like this is you can see thousands of approaches and opinions and make up your own mind. Different strokes for different folks....

Definitely one of the best summaries of GJ ever

 

[Stooge]

Are we really trying to ridicule someone for wanting to spend their time making things neat, organized and clever? I wish my shop was as clean and organized as lilscorpion's , (I had actually never seen his thread until now) it'd probably make it quicker and easier to work on things, my benches and tables are a mess of tools bouncing from one project to the other.
I will concede that I have thought it was a little 'over the top' a few times when I see someone get their first welder on here, and that the first thing they acquire is a 8'x4' giant hulk of a welding table before they have a need for any welding projects, but that is their prerogative and probably one of those things that is brought on by being on a forum like this.

It's also a forum that is centered around tools and working on things. Is it a surprise that people here like to buy nice tools? I don't care is some dude hates jigs, doesn't need no fancy table, and walked both ways up hill to school.

Bottom line is that being pretentious goes both ways. It gets just as old hearing about nobody don't need nothin' fancy as it is thinking you need a shop full of expensive tools to build cool stuff. There's guys that make something from nothing and there's guys that have $10k lifts in their garage to change their oil and show their friends how cool their 12 car garage is. The beauty of a place like this is you can see thousands of approaches and opinions and make up your own mind. Different strokes for different folks....

Definitely one of the best summaries of GJ ever

Very much agreed! I would love to have a nice Certiflat or BuildPro welding table, but they don't really fit my shop, budget, or really my needs so it would be hard to justify right now. my settling for less, having a meager budget and getting by with the resources I have, doesn't mean others need to do the same or I will think they are a fancy pants or something. I see shops, tooling and equipment on here all the time, that I could only dream of right now, but that doesn't mean I cant appreciate the resources someone else has worked to have.

 

[sberry]

I know of another machinist that re roofed his own house. It took him 4 years. He made a fixture to square every shingle. Every. Shingle.

I was repairing a muffler assembly, my neighbor is standing there as I am going to cut. He starts in, could make a jig and a die and a cutter, before he finished I whacked it off with a sawzall and he said,,, or you could do it like that,, all in the same sentence.
There is a place for precision, get no argument from me about that. I got nothing against the certiflat table but the insistence it's needed to do good work is not true. Its way down on the list, would have to be free and even then might be tempted to sell it.

 

[sberry]

A hobby is a different matter as are specialties. My neighbor has tools mainly to build more tools, to do work he actually needs he uses a few hand tools and a welder on occasion. He will make a tool for a 1 off job he is already done with and really could have been done with an off the shelf fitting. It's a hobby though, doesn't matter.

 

[Lelandwelds]

There are books as such; you can also get white papers from places like the National Institute of Standards in Washington DC (Purveyors of those people who reset your internet clock WWV and WWVH (and WWVA)... Good books on Machining precision goods go into this subject pretty succinctly...

A lot of people on the internet believe in just good enough, or the LRCH standard... it all depends whether you're building machines to build machines that build turret lathes, or building a chicken coop. Some things demand accuracy in the millionths, others, quarter inch here or there ain't gonna make or break you.

I have a couple handbooks - one is Gieks Formulas (generally for mathematic issues up to advanced calculus), another is this little black book (Machinery's Handbook or somesuch) that gets into tolerances and tables and what's allowable where... I also have one I got as a gift that does the same thing, but was dated back in the 1870's...

I actually will look up books like that on the internet depending on what I'm doing... because sometimes that ancient knowledge trumps all.

Ok, cool. I was hoping to dredge up some stuff like this. I was thinking something from ISO or some govt or insurance standard or some EU regulation.

I hadnt heard of Gieks. So far, Google returns "geeks" and Polish language stuff.