At Western Gage, we focus on air and electronic gages that with a minimum amount of operator skill provide fast-accurate and cost effective measurements of parts in production shop floor environments.
For fast accurate measurement of Internal and External Diameters consider using one of our dimensional air gages. We’ve designed and manufactured dimensional air gages for over 40 years and know what works well and what doesn’t. Air gage ranges are limited so they’re not for every application; but for highly precise parts there is nothing better.
Besides checking I.D.’s and O.D.’s, we have proven air gage designs for checking taper angle, straightness of bores, concentricity, thickness, perpendicularity, center distance and parallelism. Fabricated in Western’s gage manufacturing shop, they’re fast accurate and much less expensive than using coordinate measuring machines, roundness test tables, or surface profilometers to check these kinds of features. Does it make sense to employ expensive pieces of capital equipment when a fast-accurate custom built gage will do the job?
Readouts for fast accurate gages are where we excel with our microprocessor based instruments. MilliCheck readouts with high resolution LCD displays are ideal replacements for single channel mechanical air gage instruments. Versatile Micro IIi readouts have both bargraph and digital displays, incorporate USB & RS-232 serial outputs, and can handle up to four inputs. More complex gaging applications utilize Western’s model AEK II air-electric converters coupled to PC computer or GageChek displays.
Not all workpiece features are best measured with air gage sensors; hard contact gages are better for rough surface finishes, and for applications requiring extended gaging ranges. For these applications, we use our electromagnetic inductive probes coupled with LVDT electronic modules in Micro IIi readouts.
Of course, dimensional gages are no better than the masters used in their calibration. At Western, we operate our own gage finishing and calibrating laboratory where ANSI/ASME standard and custom setting masters are lapped and calibrated with NIST traceable standards under highly precise environmental controls.
We believe that fast accurate measurement is a key part of precision manufacturing processes. Our focus is to provide value to our customers by improving this facet of their operations.