My old Lyman M5 scale has finally got to the point where I don't trust it anymore. When checking some charges today they varied by 4 tenths -2 to +2 I cleaned the agate bearings with carb cleaner and blow dried them, but no luck I guess after 40 years I need a new one. I have a couple of the electronic types but I like to check them against a balance beam type and also for making up just a few loads. Do any of the balance beams stand out or are they all about the same. Thanks Kenny
Balance beam scales
- Thread starter kenny9-40
- Start date
BoydAllen
Gold $$ Contributor
Kenny,
It just needs a good tuneup, and it will be better than new. Take the balance beam off the scale turn the bottom toward you, and look at the knife edges. Those shiny spots are where the edges are dull. Send it to Scott. I have done my own, and I have done a couple of friends, but he has done so many that he is THE MAN, and all the reports that I have heard are good.
Boyd
It just needs a good tuneup, and it will be better than new. Take the balance beam off the scale turn the bottom toward you, and look at the knife edges. Those shiny spots are where the edges are dull. Send it to Scott. I have done my own, and I have done a couple of friends, but he has done so many that he is THE MAN, and all the reports that I have heard are good.
Boyd
Stick with the one you have Kenny - I think the M5 was about the peak of reloading scale development, when scales were still designed by engineers not accountants.
Get Scott to have a look at it and it should give many, many more years of trouble free, reliable service and they are now starting to creep up in value as shooters are begining to see that digital is not the answer to every problem.
Here's a Scott Parker tuned M5 in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWcA_0yUBxM
Get Scott to have a look at it and it should give many, many more years of trouble free, reliable service and they are now starting to creep up in value as shooters are begining to see that digital is not the answer to every problem.
Here's a Scott Parker tuned M5 in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWcA_0yUBxM
I think the current crop of minuscule "hobby"class of balance beam scales for reloading are a joke.
I think the first one of you mechanical engineer types to redesign the type to include a much longer beam, say 12", with a synthetic jeweled bearing surfaces, and easily legible numerals and hash marks that can be viewed from a reasonable angle will get swamped with orders. I would buy one despite having complete confidence in my digital Tanita jewelers scale.
Frank B.
I think the first one of you mechanical engineer types to redesign the type to include a much longer beam, say 12", with a synthetic jeweled bearing surfaces, and easily legible numerals and hash marks that can be viewed from a reasonable angle will get swamped with orders. I would buy one despite having complete confidence in my digital Tanita jewelers scale.
Frank B.
The mechanical balanced beam scales we used in the lab up to the 1990s were of this caliber and better. They were large machines and had the ability to measure weights down close to the 1 milligram (~0.015 grains) range accurately and reproducibly. They had the magnified and lit image of the end of the beam so that you could make very fine adjustments. I had a chance to see the internal guts of one of these recently in a warehouse full of surplus equipment from the local university and found them to be very complicated machines with an original four digit price tag to match. They were unfortunately a nightmare to keep tuned unless you were specifically trained to do so. They are now all gone and replaced with more accurate and reliable digital scales.
BoydAllen
Gold $$ Contributor
The fellow that started this thread mentioned that because the performance of his scale had deteriorated, that he thought that he was going to have to replace it. Some of us pointed out that it could be made better than when it was new. He did not say that it had never been good enough for his use. Obviously, there are more expensive scales that work better. The question is whether he needs one for his particular needs. Multiple users have reported that their scales, that have had Scott tune them up, have reported that their scales now move when a single granule of something like 4350 is added to their scale pans. I think that this level of sensitivity is totally amazing for scales in this price range.
Perhaps one more thing needs to be mentioned here. For many applications the determination of mass needs to be accurate as compared to a standard. For reloading, as long as the same scale is used, and it repeats well, it does not really matter if something that a scale shows as 30.1 grains is really 30.2. Loads are determined by experimentation, and as long as something that really weighs 30.2 grains comes up as 30.1 every time, there should be no functional problem.
Beyond a tuneup, I strongly suggest magnification of the marks that are used to determine that the scale is balanced. There are several ways to go about this. If reloading is done near a computer, an inexpensive manual focus web cam that can be focused very close, gives the best possible image, and allows for much more accurate reading of the scale, but even a magnifying glass on a stand is a significant improvement. The web cam also does away with parallax issues.
Perhaps one more thing needs to be mentioned here. For many applications the determination of mass needs to be accurate as compared to a standard. For reloading, as long as the same scale is used, and it repeats well, it does not really matter if something that a scale shows as 30.1 grains is really 30.2. Loads are determined by experimentation, and as long as something that really weighs 30.2 grains comes up as 30.1 every time, there should be no functional problem.
Beyond a tuneup, I strongly suggest magnification of the marks that are used to determine that the scale is balanced. There are several ways to go about this. If reloading is done near a computer, an inexpensive manual focus web cam that can be focused very close, gives the best possible image, and allows for much more accurate reading of the scale, but even a magnifying glass on a stand is a significant improvement. The web cam also does away with parallax issues.
Boyd,
I have a beam scale, as you know which I got from Scott. I have a web cam and mine will not focus down real close so I can blow up the image onto my computer screen or a laptop. What specific web cam or camera do I neet to purchase to be able to do this? I am using a magnifying glass, which helps, but any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Dave T
I have a beam scale, as you know which I got from Scott. I have a web cam and mine will not focus down real close so I can blow up the image onto my computer screen or a laptop. What specific web cam or camera do I neet to purchase to be able to do this? I am using a magnifying glass, which helps, but any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Dave T
BoydAllen
Gold $$ Contributor
Mine looks like this, but does not have the mic.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Logitech-Webcam-C250-w-Mic-for-Win-XP-Vista-7-/330745600760?pt=PCA_Video_Conferencing_Webcams&hash=item4d01f95af8
With the webcam, I set up my scale so that the pan is near the edge of my desk, and and the length of the scale is at a right angle to the edge. With my measure on one side of the scale, and my trickler on the other, it goes pretty fast. Jut for fun, I figured out how to divert the powder directly from the measure into the scale pan, while it is on the scale. The problem is that with the pan empty, powder tends to bounce out. I managed a fix for that.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Logitech-Webcam-C250-w-Mic-for-Win-XP-Vista-7-/330745600760?pt=PCA_Video_Conferencing_Webcams&hash=item4d01f95af8
With the webcam, I set up my scale so that the pan is near the edge of my desk, and and the length of the scale is at a right angle to the edge. With my measure on one side of the scale, and my trickler on the other, it goes pretty fast. Jut for fun, I figured out how to divert the powder directly from the measure into the scale pan, while it is on the scale. The problem is that with the pan empty, powder tends to bounce out. I managed a fix for that.
BoydAllen said:
Quite right Boyd, sorry about that.
Although the cameras I use are "plug and play" with no software needed I actually use "VP-eye". It's available as a free download and gives a full screen image.
I actually attach the camera to the scale so the focus stays constant.
This is my set-up.
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2011/05/forum-member-rigs-video-display-for-balance-beam-scale/
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