Lexington gazette. [volume] (Lexington, Va.) 1871-1962, 1911-11-29
Perfect GAUGES.
The Process of Their Making Is
a Profound Secret.


90 Accurate Are Thee Wonderful
Standards That Twenty o. Moro Of
Them Rubbed Together Adhere ~
Though Made Of One Piece Of Metal.
In a closely guarded room Of q small
shop In an obscure Swedish village q
man tolls In secret. says a writer In
Casters Magazine Just how be &C
complishes what he does no one knows.
not even his sous who work with him
Johannson has made the world beat
a path to his door. for he has discov-
cred the secret of making q more nc
curate limit gauge than any previously
In uSe. A single set Of his gauges
gives a practically unlimited series OF
sizes. rising by steps Of a ten-thou-
sandth OF an inch-much less than the
traditional hairs breadth-to twenty
six inches. II is said that $1,000 COM
binn tions OF these gauges are posi-
BILE.
No dimension within their limits has
been cited that they failed to repro
duce. Extreme accuracy In building
machinery. particularly that of motor
cars. IL OF the greatest Importance, and
the first step toward that end In the
perfection OF standard. Making such
standards is tedious and expensive
process But Johannson has not
found IL 70. or else he values his Sc
cret lightly from the pecuniary point
OF view, for be IL able to pay Uncle
Sam II duty of - per cent and still
offer his gauges in the American mar
ket for "A few hundred dollars, although
they could not be made here for many
times their price
| When two OF these Swedish gauges
are wiped" together 30 as to exclude
the uir from between them they nd
here with n pressure which expert
ment has shown to exceed thirty
pounds TO the square inch. Twenty
or more pieces may be thus wiped to
gether and supported horizontally By
merely holding the hast one. which
means that the accuracy OF their vari
Gus surfaces Is almost absolute.
Finishing one surface OF two sur
faces 90 a very close limit by lappinI
rubbing together with a fine abrasiv,
between-is a comparatively simpl,
matter. But achieving such perfec
parallelism as Is shown by these re
markable gauges is quite anothe
thing. Il secret quite well worth know
Ing
The peculiarly about this mysteri
ously powerful adhesion Of the SEP
arate pieces is that the feel Of tn
built up gauge thus formed Is exactl
the same as that OF n single piece o
metal. and this holds for any combs
nation. the number OF pieces formin
II not affecting the sensation in tn
slightest Amy skilled mechanic Wi
understand instincuvely the meanin
Of this and fits testimony to the az
curacy of the gauges.
For instance. Il one inch gauge ma
be built up OF pieces representa-
0.b+0.2 +0.05+. l5o+01 inch. and tn
resulting piece will be one inch absC
lutte. or any one OF several other COZ
binations may be made to represent a
inch. and blindfolded the most expel
mechanic could not detect any difYel
ence between the manner IN which thi
composite inch gauge and the on
piece inch gauge fitted In q snap gauE
OF the same size. IL would be an eas
matter TO confuse the two in handling
Mr.. Johannson. the backwoods IL
ventor who discovered what thousand
OF the most expert mechanics In MI
chine building centers- have vainl
sought for half century. limits b
output to a few hundred sets OF gauge
Il year whether purely from inclini
ton or because OF mechanical difficu
: ties In production Is as much a seer,
as the process itself and one that
will doubtless take with him when
dies.