For feeler gauges

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Steve Sawyer
Posts: 965
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2013 2:20 pm
Location: Detroit, Michigan

For feeler gauges

Post by Steve Sawyer »

Not sure if this should go in the tools and jigs section, so if this belongs elsewhere, I'm hoping someone will move it.

As a newbie to instrument-making, I had four or five sets of feeler gauges around the shop. Most were incomplete as I'd scavenged individual gauges to use as shims. I also noted that whenever I saw a luthier using a feeler gauge, it was loose - not being held in the pocket-knife-like stack in which they're sold.

Some years ago I made a holder for my 1-2-3 blocks and brass setup bars as shown in the pic below, and decided I needed something similar to organize my feeler gauges so I wouldn't have to remove and replace them from the post, or worse yet, have them loose in a drawer somewhere so I'd have the devil's own time finding a specific size.

I cobbled together the holder shown in the second pic below from some sappy cherry I had in the stash. I used a rip blade that cuts a flat-bottom kerf to cut 9/16" slots into the stock. The blade was a scrunch over 1/8", so I just cut a slot and moved the fence over by 1/4" and cut the next slot. Whacked off three pieces about 2 3/4" long from the resulting board, glued them together with some 1/4" MDF on the open side and the bottom, slopped some BLO over the whole thing, and Bob's your uncle...

There are 12 slots per row, so I know that the front row ranges (left-to-right) from .001 to .012, the second from .013 to .024, and the third from .025 to .035
Setup_BlocksS.jpg
FG_RackS.jpg
==Steve==
Glenn Cummings
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Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:12 am

Re: For feeler gauges

Post by Glenn Cummings »

Looks like it will do the job... (don't let it fall on the floor)
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Jim McConkey
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Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:00 pm
Location: Way north of Baltimore, MD

Re: For feeler gauges

Post by Jim McConkey »

Lining the dividing walls with outdated calendar magnets would go a long way to help with that problem.
MIMForum Staff - Way North of Baltimore
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Steve Sawyer
Posts: 965
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2013 2:20 pm
Location: Detroit, Michigan

Re: For feeler gauges

Post by Steve Sawyer »

Well...

This has, shall we say, "evolved" since I first posted this.

Now it has places for a short 3" scale, a fret-rocker, a StewMac setup scale, some fret shields and nut slotting files.
Setup Tools.JPG
==Steve==
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