Sharpening knife edges on balance beam scale

[PigButtons]

My RCBS 10-10 was starting to act up a bit when weighing light loads for 22 K Hornet rounds. Every five to ten charges there would be one that when thrown and hung would look to be heavy. I was throwing them about 0.1 gr light and then trickling to bring them up to 11.8 gr. If the scale was lightly tapped to make it move up it would then settle again where it should have been.

Having never looked at the knife edges before I pulled the balance beam out and inspected them with my most powerful cheaters on and while they didn't appear to have any flaws I decided to sharpen them just the same. So with a small fine grit diamond knife sharpener I just touched up the angle as it comes from the factory. It didn't take much but there were some small defects that showed up under the truing with the sharpener and when they disappeared I stopped.

After reassembly I threw 20 charges and the problem didn't recur. I think it worked just fine.

 

[Bc'z]

Did you clean the aggets and blades with rubbing alcohol, followed with a little graphite from a pencil?
I just did 1 of my beans this morning.

 

[PigButtons]

I did clean the aggets and blades but had not heard of the need for graphite. Thanks for the tip.

 

[6MMsteve]

Did you clean the aggets and blades with rubbing alcohol, followed with a little graphite from a pencil?
I just did 1 of my beans this morning.

here I go upstairs to clean my 5-10

 

[Cecil S.]

The graphite trick worked well for me.

 

[dolek]

I stone the knives a use graphite also . With a jeweler's loupe i can see when the edges are keen .

 

[JFrank]

I tried the Diamond but prefer the fine stone with a touch of oil, when tuning these scales I focus on one area at a time and don’t move on until I’m completely satisfied with repeatable performance, as Brett says cleaning is high on his list.
Mine Too....
J

 

[Liven The Dream]

Look at the Pan Hanger How it Hangs
With little weight ?