SAE/Standard Gauge

Purchased these for a work project and they work as designed. No issues so far.

Very nice tool. Well packaged. Made with precision.

This is an okay kit. If you are a professional this cheap of a kit is obviously not for you. For the avg. DIYer around the house though it works good. I have used it to check run out on sprint car axels and since its not NASA I am confident in the readings. Accurate enough for what I need. The magnet is not the strongest and the adjustments are a little bit of a pain. If you need something that will "work" for cheap this is it. If you need something more accurate and professionally built this is not it.

This item is accurate enough for my needs.

I guess it depends on what your trying to measure. If its run-out on arrows, or reloads, get the more expensive ones made for that. This is a little clumsy, and is hard to get a good read on.

In the process of going through all the mechanical systems on my 1979 F-150. I had the rear differential apart cleaning and inspecting it. I used this gauge to make sure back lash wasn't excessive. It confirmed I didn't need to replace ring & pinion at this time. I am sure it will come into use again when I tear into the engine down the road to refresh it and install a new cam. Regarding accuracy, this is a cheap tool and I am not expecting the same level of accuracy you would get spending a lot more for a higher end gauge. I am not engineering a bridge nor using this device every day as a professional. it is accurate enough for my needs. I would be nice if the magnet was a bit stronger though.

While this is a dial indicator that fits the stand that it comes with, I was hoping to be able to interchange this indicator with my other indicator. The stand is not very adjustable. What do you want to indicate? One important use for a dial indicator is on a lathe cross slide - you need to use an indicator pointing straight in to the compound so that you can see how deep you are going without cosine error. My other indicator's stand would allow me to mount it to the far side of the compound and wrap it over the top of the work, but this stand had no hope - and that was a electronic - lcd display, dim and hard to read - so I said, I'll just use the other stand with this indicator, but the barrel of this indicator is too large for the other indicator. It should be said: There are two types of indicator stands in common use. One type locks all the joints when you tighten a single nut. Then there is this sort. A single vertical bar, a single bar leading off of that. You have no joint right next to the base, so it can't be moved. Makes it way harder to set up. This kit has the crappy kind of stand. The switchable magnet works very well.

I got this to replace my old dial indicator that got dropped on the garage floor. I haven't had a chance to put it to use yet, but the magnetic base is the same as the one that broke, so should work fine. The blow molded case is decent and the extra probe tips were a nice touch.