This contest offered me an opportunity to improve my contour marking gauge. The first one was born out of necessity and was becoming rather tired, this one is meant to last.
All the parts of this gauge were fabricated from sheet brass and round brass which I silver soldered together. The materials all originated in my scrap metals pile . The knob, was made by silver soldering a 1/4" thick disc onto an existing brass machine screw then filing to its final shape. Any parts with 90 degree corners were miter bent and then silver soldered. The infills were later cut and filed to fit.
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One of the largest issues with the first contour gauge was the beam which continually slipped. To remedy this issue I modeled the mechanisms in this current version after earlier marking gauges that use a shoe under a screw to fix the beam. Like the first, this gauge incorporates a place to absorb the radius of the pencil to allow for a mark at zero.
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The pins are of a larger diameter in this gauge to slide over any discrepancies in the curve and facilitate finishing off the line supported on only one pin. As well, the pins are located closer together to more accurately parallel a curve. In the original the pins were located farther apart which would push the line farther away from its reference when rounding sharp transitions.
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The original gauge with its modified body to absorb the pencil.
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