Machinist's Thin Parallel Bar Set - 10 Pair 1/8" X 6"

If you use a drill press vise for holding metal, you need a set of parallels. These are well made and easy to use and store. One bit of advise: with any of these, after cleaning off the residue used for shipping, make sure you wipe them with a small amount of oil. Otherwise, if kept in an I heated shop, they will develop some discoloration or light rust. It doesn’t hurt the use, but doesn’t look as nice. I would buy again.

5 star product that exceeds my needs. I use to position material in a vise for drilling operations, no milling. Upon arrival I took time unwrapping, removing oil and then squared up pairs on surface plate. I'm talking visual inspection so I understand many will laugh off this review. Pairs appear consistently sized and labeling is easy to read. Parallels are nicely finished and do exactly what I need them to do. Great value, sets of these can be very expensive. Appropriate for a hobbyist like myself.

these are not starrett or any other fancy make but they are incredible value at 10% of starrett prices and fine for general machine work. They measured up ok and were mostly within the spec claimed, a couple needed a very light cleanup touch with a machinist hand stone to get them dead on. If you have a granite plate and can measure them properly even if they are a little off its really easy to get them dead on or even better than 0.0002, the ones that were a little off were oversize. out the box they are plenty good enough for machining jobs in the home shop they are good enough for a general machine/job shop too as long as your not taking on crazy aerospace stuff. what i love about these is they are cheap work OK for 99% of jobs and the nice expensive super precision set can stay in the draw for special jobs that need the extra precision.

I like the various sizes and the storage caseKeeps them from getting damaged.

Exactly what I was looking for.

I measured the set I received, and honestly quite pleased about the result.On the business sides, parallelism is within a few tenth, and the dimensional (height) variation of each pair is within a few tenth as well. Plenty close for my intended use, which is general setup on mill, lathe, shaper, drill press etc.. If one needs to use them on a grinder, he already has a grinder and can get them dead nuts himself.They have been heated treated, but does not seem to be all that hard.I did notice a few pairs are warped by a few thousandth on the non-critical surface, aka the sides which two holes were drilled. But they are not intended to be used on this direction anyway. You could straighten them up if you want.The plastic box is cheaply made though, not nearly as sturdy as the good set we have at work.For the value of the the set, it is amazing. I could make my own set, but material itself would cost me more than $34, not even mention the time I spend on machining, heat treating, grinding.

I measured a handful of these several times with a 10th micrometer and they were mostly bang-on. The 3/4 set was over tolerance by 2 tenths (so 4 total), but both were perfectly parallel and identical. The faces are not perfectly flat but I don't need them to be. Unpacking was a chore with all the rust-resistant gunk on them, but WD-40 was a very effective solvent to remove it. Overall very happy!

Each parallel was individually wrapped in oil/waxed paper. I've only used 4 sizes - but they were accurate when I measured them.