Surface plate recommendations?

[thudson]

I want to buy a surface plate, maybe 12" x 12" and I can either find really expensive ones with free shipping, or really cheap ones where the shipping is twice the cost of the plate.

I'm about 85 miles from a Grizzly showroom in Bellingham, WA, would it be worth a drive to pick one of theirs up? How is the quality of the cheap surface plates?

Are all grade B's the same?

[zephyr9900]

Enco has a 12x18" Grade B plate on sale right now for $24.95. If you buy something with it that costs at least $0.05 you can get free shipping with code PFSMAY (i.e. free shipping with $25 order...) I did that last year and am happy with my plate. Disclaimer--Enco says their plates are made to GGG-P-463c, but not traceable to that standard. A PDF copy of the GGG-P-463c federal standard is here. It also calls out the recommended 3-point mount locations for supporting the plate.

BTW I recommend not browsing the page on which the PDF is contained or you will spend hours looking through many extremely interesting documents.

Randy

[thudson]

Thank you so much. I just ordered the same plate, with hi-spot paste, and got the free shipping.

Also thanks for that link. It's a gold mine.

[zephyr9900]

You're welcome, thudson.

Randy