Harbor Freight #623 Dial Indicator

[the penguin]

A while back I bought a cheap HF dial indicator, #623, a 1" travel x .001" increments, I paid roughly $14. I expected that it would be marginal and basically a one time use tool. I am absolutely surprised with the performance, I used the indicator to align the feed pump coupling, the reason it was bought and I found it to be butter smooth and repeatability is great.

I used it to set up a fixture on the mill, then rechecked it with a Federal brand indicator, and got the exact same results. I'm going on 6 months and it seems to be the go to lathe indicator, I not sure if it because it works and easy to read or if its the fact if it get broken, I will feel far less of a loss than with one of the Brown & Sharpes, Starretts or the Mitutoyos I own.

Obviously, I'm not building NASA quality projects and I'm not saying they are better than anything else, maybe I got one on a million, but again I am extremely surprised by the indicator.


http://www.harborfreight.com/1-inch-trav...r-623.html

[Highpower]

If it works, it works.

[EdK]

It's good to get reviews about HF stuff since you never know if something from them is going to be worth getting or not.

Ed

[Rickabilly]

I have a few "Draper" brand Dial indicators, bought as a quick "get out of jail measure" when traveling to the UK with certain engineering projects in 2003,

I have used them as my everyday dial gauges since, Draper stuff is pretty much bottom feeder tooling that most guys in tool rooms snigger about, but as Jack has said. these have butter smooth movements relatively good fittings and fixtures, that is; metal bezels and screws where Mitutoyo often uses plastic bezels and plastic knobbed screws, and having been used and abused by certain "Monkey fisted" mechanics that I used to employ they still work well, And finally the scales seem easier to read in bad lighting.

Regards
Rick

Incidentally when one of the Monkey fisted guys borrowed my favorite Set of Mercer guages without permission; obviously, then dropped one, it took hours to straighten out the bezel the damage is now imperceivable but the Draper put up with that treatment daily from the same guy for maybe a year and no damage visible.