Surface Plate Calibration and Cleaning

Surface Plates can experience chipping, warping, and just plain wear, so they must be calibrated regularly. Often, the wear will be localized due to a particular tool, such as a height gauge, being used in the same place constantly. Surface Plates should also be kept as clean as possible. Swarf and other debris can easily interfere with accurate measurements. Special Surface Plate cleaner is available relatively cheaply (about $30 on Amazon for a gallon) and should be used to prevent any chemical erosion of the plate.To get more news about Cast iron surface plate, you can visit cntrueplate official website.

Here’s a fascinating video that walks through the process of testing and calibrating a surface plate in the field:
Surface Plates are not counters. Don’t set anything on the surface plate other than gages and the pieces being measured.

Say you let someone put a Coke can on a Surface Plate. That can may have dribbled so there’s a little Coke on the bottom of the can. But Coke is acidic and it will eat into your Surface Plate, damaging it.

Placing random things on a Surface Plate can also transfer harmful debris that upsets delicate measurements and abrades the Surface Plate.Proper support is essential for any surface plate to minimize warping. A variety of stands are available to support all types of surface plates. Smaller surface plates can be placed on any bench, but larger plates benefit from proper suspension.

Here’s a typical fabricated stand for the sort of large surface plates found in the inspection and quality departments of many machine shops:It doesn’t do you much good to specify a laboratory grade surface plate and then keep it in a room that isn’t temperature controlled. For the highest degree of accuracy and repeatability, the temperature must be consistent. That’s why so many shops keep their surface plates in a temperature controlled inspection room.