Hilger & Watts engineer's microscope

[Pete.]

I picked up this nice measuring microscope on the weekend and I've been cleaning and servicing it the last couple of evenings.

It's a Hilger & Watts Engineer's Microscope. It had two small spring-loaded sliding tables that run on tiny ball bearing ways. The tables are pushed against the springs by a pair of micrometers, originally they were Moore & Wright 1-thou reading ones with 1" of travel but I had a couple of Shardlow 0.0001" direct-reading ones so it would be rude not to fit those instead.

The microscope has a choice of the sliding tables or a rotating table and they can be stacked either way one on top of the other. The rotating table has 1-degree graduations around the edge and a 5-minute (1/12 of a degree) vernier for accurate measurement. Here it is:










A few jobs left to do are:

LED light source that is swappable between for above- and below-illumination
Perspex aperture covers for the round holes in the three stages
A fixture for holding my gear hobbing cutters, becaus eI have dozens of unidentifiable ones which now thankfully I have the means to properly measure.

 

[Agroshield]

Perspex aperture covers for the round holes in the three stages

I wonder if there would be a way to engrave or overlay these with a pattern so it becomes a mini optical comparator.

Maybe something like grease proof paper would do. It might allow you to print known geometry from software (and a 1/2" line so you can confirm the printer scaling is correct) and compare to a cutter.

 

[Pete.]

I wonder if there would be a way to engrave or overlay these with a pattern so it becomes a mini optical comparator.

Maybe something like grease proof paper would do. It might allow you to print known geometry from software (and a 1/2" line so you can confirm the printer scaling is correct) and compare to a cutter.

I've had the same thoughts and actually I am going to look at cutting some perspex discs then using the rotating table and a sharp cutter in my mill to put lines and annular rings on it, then dye them black.

 

[Brad93]

Wow that looks a different beast Pete. Nice work.

You’d like the two microscopes I picked up this week although they’re probably not quite as useful.

 

[Brad93]

Did you manage to get the crosshairs a bit more visible?

 

[Shox Dr]

Overhead projection film might be easier. laser printed lines

 

[Pete.]

Wow that looks a different beast Pete. Nice work.

You’d like the two microscopes I picked up this week although they’re probably not quite as useful.

Thanks, it was mostly a film of grime and a little surface rust. This had been well used though because I did have to sort a bit of wear in the focusing mechanism.

Before pic:

Did you manage to get the crosshairs a bit more visible?

I cleaned up the optics and when I put the light on it the cross-hair was nicely visible.

 

[Brad93]

Yeah as I say it came out of the QA room that had a terrible leaking roof.
it would of been well used at plessey before it went from Ilford to Romford with wound products.

 

[Pete.]

I made the illuminator for the microscope this evening. Based on the same £2 Sealey head lamp I used for the autocollimator light. I just cut the bracket off with tin snips.



I turned an aluminium tube which will act as mount and directional reflector then simply superglued it onto the lens. These lights will go for a whole day on the two little batteries.



It's sized as a sliding fit in the bottom tube of the microscope to illuminate from below via a prism



Or it can go into the side bracket clamp for illumination from above.



Here's the view through the eyepiece. The optics are good but the camera doesn't pick up the cross-hair as well as your eye does. The eyepiece has a focuser to focus on the cross-hair and then the wheel on te side allows you to focus the object on the same plane as the cross-hair so that you see both lines and part clearly.

 

[Brad93]

Brilliant Pete

 

[Pete.]

I made an attachment for my microscope today. My main use for it is going to be inspecting and measuring gear cutting hobs. My hobber uses 10mm bore cutters so I made a stand from some old angle iron and turned a 10mm diameter mount to fix to it.





The spring is there because the micrometer dials are not zero-resettable so I can zero the dial and wind the retainer against the spring to align a tooth with the cross-hair.

A great many of my hobs have only a serial number and many are so fine that you can't even easily tell if they are involute or cycloidal. This attachment let's me identify the type, the pitch, the pressure angle and the condition of the cutting edges. The rotating slide allows me to directly measure the pressure angle of the cutter - something I have not been able to do previously. so all in all I'm very happy with it.



Image is inverted in the eyepiece but that's ok.

 

[graffian]

I made the illuminator for the microscope this evening. Based on the same £2 Sealey head lamp I used for the autocollimator light. I just cut the bracket off with tin snips.

View attachment 281879

I turned an aluminium tube which will act as mount and directional reflector then simply superglued it onto the lens. These lights will go for a whole day on the two little batteries.

Neat little light.
Where do you get the torches from?
I use a battery operated led flood and it's not great.
There is a hole in the casting for a torch, you little torch would fit great.

 

[fizzy]

A work of art. Talking of which see my new "lathe" purchase

 

[MyfordPete]

Hi Pete, I've just picked up the same microscope as yours but in much worse condition! I'm having problems disassembling to clean, did you have need to take the table off the dividing plate thing? I've taken the 4 screws out that were covered by the glass plate but it's still not budging and I didn't want to force it! Are there two locating pins as well as the 4 screws??? Cheers

 

[Pete.]

Hi Pete, I've just picked up the same microscope as yours but in much worse condition! I'm having problems disassembling to clean, did you have need to take the table off the dividing plate thing? I've taken the 4 screws out that were covered by the glass plate but it's still not budging and I didn't want to force it! Are there two locating pins as well as the 4 screws??? Cheers

Hi Pete,

Good luck with your clean-up you will find it's worth it for such a nice instrument.

Honestly, I can't remember if there were pins but I think they did. Pop the screws back in loose and tap down on the heads and you'll soon find out.

 

[alanb]

Have you any pointers to where to look for such microscopes (even in poor condition; at some point in my youth I did lens designs so I ought to be able to fix one) - they look great; I've seen a number of toolmaker's microscopes and most of them (e.g. the Zeiss or OMT) look like they need three men to lift and take up the same floor space as a small jig borer. Space doesn't totally allow for this in my workshop.....or for a profile projector.

 

[Brad93]

Have you any pointers to where to look for such microscopes (even in poor condition; at some point in my youth I did lens designs so I ought to be able to fix one) - they look great; I've seen a number of toolmaker's microscopes and most of them (e.g. the Zeiss or OMT) look like they need three men to lift and take up the same floor space as a small jig borer. Space doesn't totally allow for this in my workshop.....or for a profile projector.

Auction sites. Most a thrown away people think they're just any old microscope

 

[mtt.tr]

Have you any pointers to where to look for such microscopes (even in poor condition; at some point in my youth I did lens designs so I ought to be able to fix one) - they look great; I've seen a number of toolmaker's microscopes and most of them (e.g. the Zeiss or OMT) look like they need three men to lift and take up the same floor space as a small jig borer. Space doesn't totally allow for this in my workshop.....or for a profile projector.

I'm inclined to find a stereoscope and a crosshair retical, then you only need a small micrometer stage.

 

[Maker]

Have you any pointers to where to look for such microscopes (even in poor condition; at some point in my youth I did lens designs so I ought to be able to fix one) - they look great; I've seen a number of toolmaker's microscopes and most of them (e.g. the Zeiss or OMT) look like they need three men to lift and take up the same floor space as a small jig borer. Space doesn't totally allow for this in my workshop.....or for a profile projector.

Welcome to the forum. My Mitutoyo came off eBay, be patient, there's bargains out there but they do seem to be a bit thin on the ground at the moment.

You shouldn't have said you know about lens design, I'll be asking lots of questions when I get back to fixing mine.

 

[Brad93]

Welcome to the forum. My Mitutoyo came off eBay, be patient, there's bargains out there but they do seem to be a bit thin on the ground at the moment.

You shouldn't have said you know about lens design, I'll be asking lots of questions when I get back to fixing mine.

I followed a mitutoyo on an auction site and it went for over 200. Analogue mikes not digital. It was in good nick though.