Cigarette Papers

I run 1/10 scale radio control cars for a hobby and have used green Rizlas to set spur/pinion gear mesh correctly, since the 1980s.

Yes I've used the cigarette paper method of ignition timing Harleys and Triumphs and Nortons for years too. Every time I've ever double checked with a strobe light it's been spot on. I use Australian made Tally-Ho brand. One colour: white. No idea of exact thickness. Nominally a thou or so I suppose.

+1 for using cigarette papers for setting milling cutters up against the part to be milled, didn't measure the paper thickness but just assumed it was one thou give or take a midges. Quite accurate enough for most of the stuff I do!

Only got the green, didn't know there were other colours as don't smoke and that was just what the lady in the shop gave me.

Chris

I have a box 30 year old continuous form computer paper under my office desk. Its 2 thou thick and does the same job as a rizla for setting the Z height on a milling cutter. Can't see me ever running out....

As I was walking back to my car after a medical appointment yesterday, I noticed a chap with a stall selling, inter alia, lighters and cigarette papers.

So I purchase three boxes of Rizla+ green for a pound.

I suspect that I now have a lifetime's supply!

Be carefull there are some fake Rizla's around and they are out of spec.

regards Martin

How can one tell if one has genuine OR fake Rizla+?

I'll try measuring the thickness later.

Very many thanks for the warning.

Is Martin pulling our legs?

Cigarette paper isn't high-technology. Handy in a workshop because it's about a thou thick (0.02mm), which is accurate enough and about the right size for setting up machine tools for ordinary precision. It's a useful workshop trick, not toolroom accuracy!

Aluminium kitchen foil is rarely used for this purpose despite being thinner and more accurately made than cigarette paper. Reason - being waterproof, it fails the gob test!

Dave

You can’t roll a joint with foil, but I suppose you can’t wrap food in a fag paper

Mike

mmmm . . . I have to admit to being somewhat tongue in cheek.

best regards Martin

There are no doubt more accurate and more expensive ways of measuring flatness but for most of us the traditional toolmaker's test of a bit of cigarette paper at each corner with the work on the surface plate is good enough.

That's interesting, I didn't know that one. Does the test check if any of the corner papers are looser than the others when pulled? As 4 adjacent papers from the same pack would be almost identically thick due to the way they're made, it seems valid.

I'd love to know who first thought this sort of thing up. Unsung heroes!

Dave

This thread is a proper education. I think I need to invest in some Rizla! I had no idea it was so useful, especially in setting up the mill.

Another hero would be the individual who realized that if three surfaces "mesh" mutually they must all be flat. I think Maudslay is credited with this.

.

I agree with the sentiment ... but not the attribution

My nomination is Joseph Whitworth

MichaelG.

.

See Figures 10-13 here:

https://archive.org/details/whitworthmeasur00whitgoog/page/n26/mode/2up

The process is described in some detail

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 08/08/2020 17:09:37

MichaelG:

Yes, Whitworth it was; thanks for the correction.

A near-miss from memory on my part as it seems from J W Roe's English and American Tool Builders that the method was developed under Maudslay.

Whitworth was also the originator of the shaper's quick return motion.

I will look at your link.

Edited By ega on 08/08/2020 17:24:59

I suspect the most common available will be the green papers, it's the ones I used when I use to smoke. I have never used for engineering although use to use them when de-magnetizing tape heads.

Tom.

MichaelG:

A fascinating and eminently practical description of the process!

Interesting that the scraper shown is so different from the modern kind (and looks very useful).

I think I've got my head round it, so are they saying that if given three presumed flat pieces, A, B & C, that if A&B, A&C and B&C all contact each other fully (by evidence of engineering blue or whatever) then they must be flat as any convexity (of A for example) being counteracted by an equal concavity of a mating part (B for example) would result in them not fitting flush with a third component (C)?

I'm not very academic so that took me a while.

I use a bit of fag paper occasionally or whats left of my thou and a half shim steel, seems ebay sellers only sell thou and a half in £14.50 rolls, the roll is 25' long though...