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A retired machinist at a yard sale in Tulsa asked why I still touch off every tool by hand
He said his old shop switched to a probe 12 years ago and he never went back to paper shims. I've been doing it the slow way on my Haas for so long that a $20 feeler gauge feels like cheating. Anyone else still touch off by feel or did you all move to a probe?
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claire37829d ago
Switched my little bench mill over to a probe about four years ago and it was the best money I ever spent on that machine. I still keep a feeler gauge and a sheet of paper in the drawer for when a probe dies or I'm doing something weird with a tiny drill bit. What sold me was running the same job over and over and getting the exact same numbers every single time instead of being off a thou depending on how tired I was that day. The trick is you still have to keep your holders and collets clean or the probe just gives you the same wrong number faster. Learning to set the probe and trust it took me maybe a week, the first few days I was double checking everything by hand anyway. Now I touch off with the probe and then spot check one tool by feel just to keep myself honest, and 99 times out of 100 they agree. The feeler gauge is not cheating, it's just slower, and on a Haas the probe pays for itself the first time you scrap a part because you fat fingered a shim.
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