Mortice gauge

[Cheshirechappie]

My mortice gauge - a Marples one dating from the mid 1980s - had been giving me some trouble. It's the sort with a screw adjustment for the distance between the two marking pins. The problem was the screw adjustment had become very stiff. So stiff, that pliers were needed on the knurled screw to move it at all, in fact. I was about to ditch it and scour Ebay when my inner tightwad suggested an attempt at overhaul, instead. So I did, thinking that I may have to retap the adjusting thread. Not so. Once the adjuster was completely unscrewed, the screw was still very stiff in the long bar that has the moving point at one end, and the screw adjuster at the other. Holding the screwthread into the longbar is a small spring-type retaining ring. Easing this away from the longbar slightly with a small screwdriver eased the tightness; a drop of oil, and the screw worked just as it should. Reassembly, a bit of attention to the marking pins with a file, and the gauge is better than new. That's saved me a few bob!

So - if your mortice gauge is a swine to adjust, try easing the little retaining spring a bit. Takes seconds, makes a huge difference!

 

[Peter Sefton]

Thats a good tip to remember, also some people do not undo the screw on the stock before adjusting the sliding pin which may lead to the internal thread being stripped. We used to strip them down and tweak them so 4mm mortices can be marked, now Marples are making them for us to these finer tolerances and reworking marking and cutting gauges for us too- another benefit to getting tools made in Sheffield.

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[WoodyMarc]

cheers for the advice