In article ,
Jon Elson wrote:


Ludwig P. Pietz wrote:
I have a B & S dial caliper with a broken crystal - #599-579-5, Is
there a place (hopefully on-line) where I can buy a replacement? Lud

I made a new crystal for a B&S dial indicator from a piece of Plexiglas.
It really wasn't too hard, and has a flat front, which actually works
better with respect to reflections. I super-glued one side to a piece of
faced-off steel, then turned all the other features, then just popped
it off the mandrel. I glued it to the dial bezel.

An alternative is to get some thin Lexan, turn it to just
oversized, and add a bevel on the edge. Then turn and polish a support
ring near the maximum diameter, and a pusher to fit through the bezel
ring. Use an arbor press or even a drill press to push down on the
pusher which forms a dish in the Lexan. This results in the edge
reducing in diameter just enough so you can drop the bezel ring in
place. When you release the force on the pusher, the crystal expands to
fit the recess in the bezel ring, and you have a nice crystal. *Now*
pull off the protective plastic which you left in place to avoid
scratching the crystal with the pusher.

Here is a web page which I made once to document what I did:

http://www.d-and-d.com/PROJECTS/Crystals/index.html

The download time of the images won't be as bad as it once was based on
my end, as I now have a T1 instead of a 56k frame relay (27.5 times the
speed), but if you are on a dialup, clicking on the images will take
some time.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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