New Dial Caliper Sadness

[JackinLA]

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[Frank Ford]

Years ago I did one even better. My dial caliper was lying, face down on the bench, and I managed to spill some clear lacquer, which, of course, ran under the caliper, partially dissolving the front of crystal. I didn't notice it at the time, but when I did pick up the caliper about a week later, the lacquer had dried and plastic lens was completely glued to the bench and disintegrated. I did manage to use the thing (lightly, as a second unit) for some years without the crystal, being very careful not to injure the fragile little pointer.

By now, I've forgotten what ever happened to that fine old Tesa caliper.

[rudd]

You might talk to Long Island Indicator - they can repair it and might be able to just send you the part. I had (something - can't remember) fixed there some years ago, reasonable and pretty quick.

http://longislandindicator.com/p72.html

[JackF]

If it is just frosted you can probably just polish it back to readable like you would to a frosted headlight lens. If you do this I would protect everything except the lens to be sure none of the polishing stuff gets on anything else. I bought a .0001 dial indicator off Ebay with a yellow and frosted lens. this fix didn't bring it back to new but made it very readable.

Jack.

[wsippola]

If you have anyone who repairs watches in your area, they could replace the crystal for you. No need to replace the calipers for just the crystal.

[Jaxian]

I must admit I just applied some fixes to this exact situation a few times in the last few weeks.

The first one was on the pressure gauge of my 50 year old Duplomatic tracer. It was so frosted white as to be opaque. It also had a bunch of melted chip divots. Now the deep divots I couldn't get out but I did manage to make everything else very clear. It was very thick plastic, much more so than most indicators so I started with a 400, then 600 grit sandpaper...VERY lightly. I then moved to 000 steel wool, when that seemed to top out, and it was readable by then I moved to 0000 steel wool. That made it pretty darn good. To finish though I went to Simichrome which made it look pretty perfect in the spots without big divots but even those that I could clean up now where very minimized. For the final touch I used Nevr-Dull and a microfiber towel for the last stage. At that point it was crystal clear. Even with a 50 year old gauge.

Now that was a gauge with a very thick crystal so I don't think you could get away with the sandpaper steps on a indicator or the like. I just picked up two Mitutoyo dial indicators, again both probably 25 years old or so with a definite haze. Not horrible thankfully as the plastic crystal is much thinner. On the bad one I used the Simichrome then Nevr-Dull with microfiber. On the lightly scuffed one just used Nevr-Dull with the microfiber to polish it up. All by hand. Only took a few minutes per stage. All gauges look great and are easy to see through now.

Only down side being of course the divots in the pressure gauge and two small cracks in the one indicator. I can post pictures if you like.

Being a dial caliper it probably has a very thin plastic crystal. So I would just do a Nevr-Dull polish with a microfiber towel and see if with some slow and judicious work you can bring it back. The only downside I see is if your dial caliper is like my Mitutoyo dial indicators then you need a crystal press and puller to install and remove the crystal so if you don't have one (and who does who isn't a pro) you will have to do it on the caliper. This means going slowly and NOT pressing too hard and cracking it or pushing in the crystal.

Best of luck. But unless it's melted in deep you should be fine with some patient elbow grease.

[wlw-19958]

Hi There,

Decades ago, I bought some Meguiar's plastic cleaner and polish.
It works real well to remove minor frosting and scratches on clear
plastic. Meguiar's #17 is the cleaner and #10 is the polish. I
recommend using both for best results. I used it to restore the
lenses on the gauges in my old Corvette (back when I had one).
Like I said, It worked really well.

Good Luck!
-Blue Chips-
Webb

[Richard_W]

A young guy at work wanted to use my cleaner remover. I told him to go on ahead. A moment later I hear the spray and look around the corner. He was spraying a CD to clean it. He instantly got a look of distress on his face as he tried to wipe it off.


Richard W.

[JackinLA]

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[JackF]

Jack, glad you got it fixed. But you must know, once on the web, everyone knows.

Jack.

[Mr Ron]

After reading this thread, I went out and bought a tube of Flitz. I proceeded to polish every lens made of plastic, starting with sunglasses; going onto dial indicators in the shop. WOW is all I can say about this product. I had lens crystals I couldn't see through for years and now they are almost like new. Don't hesitate, but run to get some Flitz. I found it at Ace Hardware.

[JackinLA]

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