At the railway we often use feeler gauges, say 5 thou, for fiddly little jobs like lining-up things, pushing tags back, easing o-rings on or off, that sort of thing and I was wondering whether they would be any good when changing straps?
A tool could be used to compress the spring bar one side, create a gap then insert the gauge to prevent the pin relocking into the lug. Repeat with another gauge on the other side and bingo, withdrawn strap and pin (compressed both sides) between the gauges and hey presto no damage.
Any thoughts!?
It all sounds a bit fiddly to me OP. I use the tweezer type tool and it's usually very successful.
Interesting to hear you mention 5 thou though. My Dad was an engineer, he often used to talk about things being a few thou out. Is that type of measuring still used?
OP: certainly worth a try, I'll report back later.
It certainly is still used in engineering.Originally Posted by estoban7
R
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Cheers ralphy, I just assumed it gone the same way as feet and inches. Nice to hear that my Dad's old instruments are still relevant in this age
Also in guitar set up and repair Ralph, where a feeler guage is slid between the underside of a string and the top of a fret wire to measure the action height.
F.T.F.A.
Ahh now we might be getting out wires crossed. I was referring to the measurement known as a thou, or one thousand parts of an inch.
plenty of uses for feeler gauges and thous in the medical and semiconductor capitol equipment game.
although the bulk of my work was and will be done (am about to un-early-retire) in metric units, have had to specify in thous occasionally mainly for conus and just the once for canada. there is quite a bit of yank made stuff around in need of the odd fettle. my main issue though is weird and wonderful threads.
at 53 i seem to be in the age group of folk easily able to work in both old and new money - although fahrenheit still annoys me, if for no other reason than my ongoing inability to spell it correctly at first attempt.
The feeler gauge idea sounds good to me, I keep a set on my watch bench for measuring clearance between the crown and case when replacing a stem, the trick is to keep taking small amounts off till the correct fit us achieved. I check the gap with a feeler gauge then grip the feeler gauge in the digital caliper to quickly convert to metric, take the crown and stem out then take the appropriate amount off with a diamond file plate ( 10 strokes = approx 0.1mm).
I’m of that generation that can work in metric and imperial depending on the task, imperial feeler gauge sets are getting harder to source so I need to treat mine carefully!
Many of us older engineers still think in thou's but today's engineers use the metric system, microns.
The concept of ‘thinking’ in different units must seem strange to younger folks who have always used metric!
In the chemical industry we used both gallons and litres because many of the plants were old and vessels were calibrated in gallons. Old processes were written in gallons and anything from the USA was in US gallons!
For measuring length I have to think in feet and inches, that’s the only way I visualise it. For small volumes of liquid I think in metric but for large volumes it’s gallons. I can estimate freeplay and end- float on car stuff in thousands of an inch but for anything watch- related it’s tenths of a mm.
Torque settings on the car (1970 MGB) are all in lb. ft, I can estimate lb. ft fairly well when tightening nuts and bolts, but my torque wrench is calibrated in N.m only which is a real pain.
Give it another 50 years and no-one will remember imperial!
Mention that to the Americans :)
Having used both measuring systems for many years I have to say the Metric system is better and easier.
Imperial threads and drill sizes where a nightmare as there where so so many, number drill, letter drills, 1/64th 1/32 etc etc and imperial thread sizes is another story altogether !! :)
I tend to think in metric and imperial when machining but I still convert metric to imperial just to be safe especially when getting down to thous:)
Weight, height, speed will always be in st lbs, feet and inches and MPH for me though.
I bet they'll still be drinking pints of beer and measuring their speed in miles-per-hour.
Sorry, but sounds like a headache and prone to problems. There is a spring bar tool to compress both ends for inserting and removing
I use a pocketknife to remove
How many "mint" watches do you see for sale but with a few minor strap changing marks ?
For many years I worked on large steam turbines across the UK. The older machines were imperial ('imp' we called it) and the newer machines were metric.
The 'thou' was a great unit. So there's 40thous in a millimetre and it's about as accurate as you can get on a normal lathe/milling machine. On metric machines we would still make modifications in thou for example we would get the machinist to grind 10thou off a locating key to move something quarter of a mm.
Funny enough, in the USA they used to call thous 'mills' !!!
Used to cause endless confusion.
Had the same idea being an engineer and frustrated at how poor manufacturers are at basic strap changing designs...tried it and didn't work out. The thinness of the feeler gauge required meant distortion of the feeler gauge when trying to insert the springbars. Also you need to get the feeler/bar in the correct position so you are not blocking the hole the springbar clicks into. Not easy. Why don't they use quick release on all watches? Beats me. As an aside watch random rob review of Louis erard alain Silberstien watch - the quick release of the springbars hit the case of the watch!
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