The surfaces of both the plug and the collar should be very carefully cleaned and oiled before being tried together, it being found that a film of oil will be interposed between the surfaces, notwithstanding the utmost accuracy of fit of the two, and this film of oil prevents undue abrasion or wear of the surfaces.
When great refinement of gauge diameter is necessary, it is obvious that all the gauges in a set should be adjusted to diameter while under an equal temperature, because a plug measuring an inch in diameter when at a temperature of, say, 60° will be of more than an inch diameter when under a temperature of, say, 90°.
It follows also that to carry this refinement still farther, the work to be measured if of the same material as the standard gauge should be of the same temperature as the gauge, when it will fit the gauge if applied under varying temperatures; but if a piece of work composed, say, of copper, be made to true gauge diameter when both it and the gauge are at a temperature of, say, 60°, it will not be to gauge diameter, and will not fit the gauge, if both be raised to 90° of temperature, because copper expands more than steel.
To carry the refinement to its extreme limit then, the gauge should be of the same metal as the work it is applied to whenever the two fitting parts of the work are of the same material. But suppose a steel pin is to be fitted as accurately as possible to a brass bush, how is it to be done to secure as accurate a fit as possible under varying temperatures? The two must be fitted at some equal temperature; if this be the lowest they will be subject to, the fit will vary by getting looser, if the highest, by getting tighter; in either case all the variation will be in one direction. If the medium temperature be selected, the fit will get tighter or looser as the temperature falls or rises. Now in workshop practice, where fit is the object sought and not a theoretical standard of size, the range of variation due to temperature and, generally, that due to a difference between the metals, is too minute to be of practical importance. To the latter, however, attention must, in the case of work of large diameter, be paid: thus, a brass piston a free fit at a temperature of 100° to a 12-inch cast-iron cylinder, will seize fast when both are at a temperature of, say, 250°. In such cases an allowance is made in conformity with the co-efficients of expansion.
In the case of the gauges, all that is practicable for ordinary work-shop variation of temperature is to make them of one kind and quality of material—as hard as possible and of standard diameter, when at about the mean temperature at which they will be when in use. In this case the limit of error, so far as variation from temperature is concerned, will be simply that due to the varying co-efficients of expansion of the metals of which the work is composed.
Fig. 1398.
To provide a standard of lineal measurement which shall not vary under changes of temperature it has been proposed to construct a gauge such as shown in [Fig. 1398], in which a and b are bars of different metals whose lengths are in the inverse ratio of their co-efficients of expansion. It is evident that the difference of their lengths will be a constant quantity, and that if the two bars be fastened together at one end, the distance from the free end of b to the free end of a will not vary with ordinary differences in temperature.
Plug and collar gauges may be used for taper as well as for parallel fits, the taper fit possessing the advantage that the bolt or pin may be let farther into its hole to take up the wear. In a report to the Master Mechanics Association upon the subject of the propriety of recommending a standard taper for bolts for locomotive work, Mr. Coleman Sellers says:—