Hitch wrote:
Got a bit of birthday money and one thing I'd like is a dial indicator.
Lee Valley has one for $32 for indicator AND magnetic base. They say it's
accurate to 0.0005". Is this really a good deal, or is $32 bucks US just
too cheap for reasonable quality? Maybe I should just buy more clamps from
LV and look elsewhere for a better dial indicator.

I believe there's a factory in China that turns out shiploads of these
indicators. I've seen basically the same one sold by several vendors.
I don't have the Lee Valley version, but I've seen it in their store,
and it's better than or equal to any of the other no-name Chinese
indicators you'll find.

I've had one for years, and while I doubt it would last day-in and
day-out in a production machine shop, it's worked just fine for all the
machine alignment and testing I've done.

Have fun,

Tim