Here's the top of my box if anyone is interested. Obviously, I'm a hobby machinist, doing highly specialized small projects.
Clockwise from lower right corner:
Starrett Wiggler set (for locating holes and sides of workpieces on a mill).
Starrett #706BZ 123 "inspection" blocks. I bought these directly from Starrett's ebay page as seconds. They had some tiny rust spots. Rust usually pits a surface (once its cleaned off), so small pits don't really effect the utility of these. These are $700+ new. I may have paid $200 for them. They are nearly perfectly square and perfectly 1"x2"x3" dimensionally. Very handy.
Crappy craftsman 1/4" drive sockets- since replaced with Snap On. Some craftsman tools are usable. The CM 1/4" drive seems to be particularly bad. The drive sides have wobble functionality built in! In the smaller sizes, the sizes stamped into the socket is really a rough guide.
Starrett Vee blocks #278 . There is an individual and a matched pair here. I cleaned these on a wire wheel before I knew better. Lord knows if they are still matched- they should be close. Someday, I'll check them out.
Upper Left Corner:
Hermann Schmidt 3" Angle plate sitting on VPI paper.
Suburban 123 blocks- set of 4 matching blocks- These don't appear to have been ground. I bought these at an auction from the guy who bought them from new. Had a few rust spots, but nothing major. The Chinese copy these but get them wrong. They drill all the holes, then tap half of them, leaving the other half alone. That way, you can't pass a screw thru them to screw them together, defeating the purpose of tapping the holes in the first place.
Starrett #56 Surface Gage.
Starrett #257 Surface Gage. Both train wreck when I got them. Lovingly restored. As I said, I typically use these to mount indicators on.
Top Right Corner:
Schmidt V0-4 grind vise. If you don't know what this is, never mind. But this is one of the things I would grab if my shop caught fire. I paid $165 for this to the daughter of a machinist who had passed. That was her price, not mine.
Bottom Right Corner:
Girodtast test indicators. These were cheap on ebay (under $50 each) probably because they were listed as Fowler. Fowler has a reputation for marking up Chinese items and calling them "mid quality". But they also re-brand off brand Swiss items which are pretty good quality. These happen to be Swiss made. They are both 0-15-0 X .0005. I have a matching tenths indicator in my drawer of arms. Tho I have many, I'm not a connoisseur of indicators. I just know not to buy the Chinese models with the non-std fixings.
In the center are precision ball bearings that I have used for inspections.
People ask me if I work on the Space Shuttle with these tools. I don't. What got me into all this tooling was all the second hand and Chinese made stuff I was buying. You can buy a Chinese mill vise that looks just like a Kurt, but you really have no idea what you are getting. It could be okay, or worth nothing. Without a way to inspect to .001" or so, you have no idea. And that's no simple matter. I know our digicalipers read to .001", but it isn't easy to get that kind of accuracy out of them.
So the way I see it, you have 2 choices; either buy your machinery from a company that actually can certify its specs (like EVERY machine shop does), or stand up your own mini QC department to calibrate the second hand junk you buy. And this goes for woodworking equipment, Paul. You can get finish ready surfaces out of some miter saws or table saws. Or not. Arbors and bearings can be checked, and adjusted or repaired if you have the right tools to check them.
