I always enjoy the meatloaf vids Tom, and always watching and learning from you.

That was more like filet mignon! Good to see you posting again. Talk to you soon, ATB, Robin

Awesome video! Was very impressed by the aluminum tape to step granite improvised portable lap along with the initial demonstration of how Reynolds Heavy Duty Tin Foil makes an amazing substrate for holding lapping charge. I had acquired a 2’x3’x4”black granite surface plate from a local equipment rental company but put the reconditioning of it off due to lack of ability to do so with my current equipment. Seeing your demonstration really has opened up the possibilities for me to think of tackling this now. So a much appreciated Thank You for taking the time to make this video and sharing your knowledge and insights gained from experimenting.

Great idea on the aluminium lap Medium, far easier, and less expensive than the old Lead (Pb) sheet. From a metallographic aspect, polishing samples to 0.5 micron for example, from 120 grit, 240, 360, etc to 1200 abrasive paper on rotating platens, then 6 micron, 1 micron. We rotate the sample 90 ° degrees for each grit, to check that each successive polishing has removed previous uni directional polishing lines, between each grit, the sample is washed to remove previous grit. 6 micron and smaller, we use rotating platens with different adhesive cloth naps, loaded with diamond paste and oil, a figure of eight action is always used here because the platen is rotating, using a fixed platen, then orbital action is used. Great care is taken to clean between each stage, using Ethanol, Acetone etc, with cotton wool and/or ultrasonic cleaning. Cheap toilet tissue paper will scratch the surface of most steels, you need a good quality named brand. Tip, if using a ultrasonic cleaner, then use a small container, just large enough for the sample with Ethanol etc, suspended in the aqueous US cleaning solution, don't forget to degass.

Hi Tom! Thanks for great video, as always! I was that "one guy", very happy to see you found my technique useful. Little tip (reduces tearing of foil and edge "smoothing") : try putting just a drop or two of viscous oil (200+cSt is excellent) to your surface plate, add foil and push away all the oil with your shaft or a rubber roller (works even better). Surface tension forces hold the foil better than adhesive tape. For small parths with low dimension rations we use a special holder, it looks like a small cap for a part, with a round socket on top of it. A bent rod with a ball on it goes into that socket, making the lapping force always sentered on the part, making a point contact system. Automatic lapper with a static weight added to all the parts does the same job. Will try to make a full video with all this things to complete the topic. Thanks again! Pavel

Tom, instead of taping the foil onto your plate, try spritzing the plate with water, lay the foil on, and squeegee the water out. The foil should stick to the plate almost like how tinted windows are applied. I do this on glass plates and it works for me. It should also help prevent the edge roll-off, by keeping the foil down at the edges.

A Renzetti & Lipton conversations YT channel would be a hit for sure.

Glad to see your episode. I miss you. Aluminum forms a thin oxide layer upon exposure to air, and that surface itself can act as a hone.

Exciting technique!! Super glad to have you back with always good material. THANKS!

On the lapping with aluminum: during my apprenticeship I learned the same trick except with paper and it served me well. We worked with D5, and a guy who worked at Timex (those guys could do small work) showed me how to use paper on a steel surface plate soaked with kerosine. We would use reducing grits and get flat mirror finishes in no time. And you could peel off the charged paper, let it dry and use it again. Later when I was doing precision die work in carbide, I used the same thing with diamond paste which also worked well. The aluminum trick looked good but I saw you fight to keep from snagging it. This happened occasionally with paper, but with the kerosine (or any light oil) the paper adhered to the lapping plate like it was glued there. I never checked for flatness with a optical flat but after your experiments with the “cheap Russian flats” I ordered one and now I can give it a try. But the paper/light oil/diamond paste worked pretty well on carbide and were much less trouble than the foil. Stay with the nerdy stuff! It’s fun for many of us out here in Internet country.

A good use I have found for my HF magnetic level is to stick it to the leaf of my sheet metal brake. I zero the level with the leaf at rest and then note the angle when I stop a bend. That way I can return to the same point if I need to bend a little more or bend multiple pieces at the same angle. I actually keep a log of all my bends, so when I need to bend a sheet I have a log of materials, thickness and angles that get me the angle that I want very quickly.

Good to see you again Tom Hope Everyone there are living long and prospering have missed your presence on You-Tube

This makes me want to lap everything in my shop, but then everything would wring together and I'd never be able to pick anything up.

Another gem!! Thanks Tom!

A great video Tom, your a good teacher. learned a lot, thanks.

Awesome show Mr Wizard! Thanks for sharing your time and many talents

Good to see you back. Thank you for all that you offer to the metalworking community.

Great video and ideas. Thank you, again.

great stuff. thanks for all the time you put in to the metal working industry. keep up the good work

That was really cool, knowledge is power ,thanks much for sharing love the meatloaf !

Glad to see you post another video. I was having serious meatloaf withdrawal symptoms! Another excellent episode. Thanks. TL.

All great ideas!

Now that was worth the wait! Thanks for a very interesting video.

Very interesting video. Ask and ye shall receive eh. Thanks for the meatloaf.

wonderful lapping ideas

Some great ideas thanks for sharing Tom, looking forward to lapping surfaces parallel to each other.

I learn so much, and I am very thankful. I did not have a depth mike, but now I can make one. Great.

Welcome back! I've been going through your back catalog while you've been gone. Good to see you making new videos.

Thanks Tom, that was just flat worth learning.

Great to have you back! Now, on to P2..

I was just in the mood for some meatloaf.. Thanks Tom.

Great episode. The foil lap technique is genius.

Always stoked to see a new oxtool video !

It's good to see you again, Tom. Apart from the use of terms such as "Gronk!" and "Sweeeet!", we have missed the lessons you gave us on "Wot to do." May you live long and prosper, and I fervently hope that we will see many more of these insights into metrology, as well as fit and tolerance.

Looking forward to more on lapping for size and geometry. Thanks for another plentiful serving.

Interesting content Tom, Thanks, cheers, Doug

Nice ideas.

Good to see you back Tom!

Thank you , missed your show.

Glad you’re back!

Good to see you back Tom .Keep up the good work

I've had one of those mini Collins micro flat plates for 50 years.Bought it a swap meet in 1968 for $2.00.I'm going to start using it on my grinder also.

Nice techniques shown with both the internal lap and the aluminum foil.

Great vid Tom!

I like the mini granite lapping trick - kind of like an ox tools style sanding block ;)

Very interesting stuff Tom! Jim

Now just attach one of those small surface plates on a random orbital sander and you got yourself a hyper lapper !

Wow at the aluminum foil trick. Will try.

Delicious shop cuisine!

It seems HF is moving up in the world with quality items for less than the high end competition. Namely battery drill drivers and impact stuff. At any rate, it's good to see you and thanks for the video and all the great ideas.

Incredibly interesting episode! I love those little chair edge finders. I want to make some of the Moore model because I think it will be easier since I do not have a surface grinder. Daniel

Darn that was the best Monday night that I have spent in a long long time, I just learned so much, aluminum foil who would have thought, something new for the shop, I’m raiding the kitchen right now, Yes I want a mini surface plate cheers!

A divinding head and *cough* that blue South Bend 7" shaper *cough* would make those Lap grooves pretty nice.

ALRIGHT!!! New OxToolCo video!!! Looks like my Monday isn't turning out to bad at all!

Thumbs up Tom! I was really craving some good meatloaf.

that was fun to watch, was never sure where your were headed. ejoyed and thanks

man it is good to see you again,,, been missing you , thanks for the video//

Lapped the bottom of a harbour freight angle guage...Yep, Tom's back :D

Welcome back. I missed your dry humor

Mr Lipton!!! Welcome back! Please dont stay away for such a long time again!

Been craving some meatloaf...

Отличная идея!

Nice Loaf. I have a Starrett with bad faces....was going to use it as a c-clamp. See what I can do about shoving it in your direction. :-)

Yay! Welcome back Tom!

Thank you, great video. I'm sure the Australian cricket team could find the bit on lapping useful..

Nice to see you again stranger.

Nice video to learn from. I use to do something similar to lap. But the trick that I was taught many years ago by an Italian mentor while doing my apprenticeship in South America. He would use thin construction paper about .5mm THICK or .020" thick. and no lighter fluid . He would also tape down to a surface plate. But I found it kinda hard to get that construction paper here in the USA when working as a tool and die maker. So I bought plastic shim stock from McMaster . It's sold in several thicknesses and sizes. And I can achieve the exact effect of flat lapping and you can also use a very fine oil. Nice thing about buying it from McMaster is that you can buy the diamond lapping syringes and the plastic shim stock and get in the shop next day.

We've missed you uncle Tom

YAY! Ox tools video after months of wait!

On my way to work this morning I literally thought to myself that I hadn't seen a meatloaf episode in a long time.

About a month ago, I did this with my hf digital angle gauge and made some brass screw heads with lateral indexed knearling

Fascinating

The magnetic digital levels are fantastic to have around. When I helped my brother install new Rotary lifts in his shop I slapped two of them on a post, 90° apart, and had an immediate readout of both cardinal directions for mounting it plumb. So much easier that trying to read a bubble level, and surely more accurate. Good to have a known flat and parallel piece of metal to span larger surfaces (averaging a rough surface finish, for instance). A 1/2" square by 6" HSS tool blank is my personal choice.

Uh yeah, new meatloaf! Nice!

Useful . Thanks

Gotta love that meatloaf!

I know those "bevel boxes" from my friends in wood working... when they set their bevel cuts on the table saw :-)

Hi Tom, i really enjoy your video's , i thought your design on the repeat- o - meter was a really good design on the flexure for sure thx for sharing

Entertaining, educational and enlightening, its all here folks. Thanks for sharing. Kindest regards. Joe. PS I have decided you and Robin are the 'Dynamic Duo', not sure who is who thought😂😂😂😂😂.

Welcome back Mr Ox.

Love the shirt Tom!

I was waiting to see if you used water and a squeegee to hold foil to table. Many films use this technique.

If that cylindrical lap were made of copper it could almost be a magnetron cavity.

I have a suggestion for the tin foil lapping. I think you'll get better results if you put a drop or two of mineral oil on the plate, something that has some modest viscosity; grease might even work but oil will spread easier on the plate. Use a flexible squeegee to get a nice even layer just the slightest wiff of oil then lay your foil out and use the squeegy (after cleaning the squeegy) again over the top of the foil to get the air out from underneath, it will also vacuum adhere the foil to the plate pretty good as long as you don't over do it with the oil.

WOO! NEW MEATLOAF!

Right on time, was just doing some similar stuff for fun.

Mmmm meatloaf and gravy even

dag gum, powerful stuff

thanks awesome

Love it

Been missing you Sir!

Tom, I have used aluminum foil and water to remove rust from chrome bike part, it works amazingly well!

The lap thingy looks like the inards of a magnetron.

Dang, no room left for my lemon meringue, lol.

I've got a set of 4 Mitutoyo optical parallels that I've used to check the parallelism of my small mics, similar in function to that ST parallel. I've seem metric sets for larger mics on eBay, clearly from old USSR sources.

Mmm fresh meatloaf!

The figure 8 thing came from the need to utilize the whole surface of the sanding paper. We're past those times, sand paper is cheap and far more durable now.

Tom P.P.P. what’s happened seems to have fell by row way side ( Print Press Project ) 👍 Great meatloaf this time

Lord Volumort, the metrologist who shall not be named.

Hi Tom. In the 3d printing world, we use sheets of glass / mirrors as a 'flat' surface to print on. I was wondering exactly how flat something like this is when compared to something calibrated and certified like your surface plate there. Nice find on the optical parallel, always interesting to scan through eBay to see what hidden treasures people are selling.