Beam scale pivots a little on knife

I recently acquired a used Ohaus 1010. I've noticed that the knives are able to move horizontally a little such that I can see the magnetic dampener part not always being in the center of the slot after I replace it after dumping the measured powder. I noticed this after I was dumping powder in the pan and all of a sudden the scale arm jumped quite a bit and I was way over the planned charge. I then noticed that the the copper dampner part was actually touching one of the sides. Is some movement in the horizontal plane normal? Is mine moving too much? It seems it pivots mostly on one knife edge/agate. Could one knife edge be higher or one of the agates being lower? If the latter is the case, is there any way to 'trim' the agates to be exactly the same height to the bottom of the 'V'? I could just remove the one that might be lower and put a few pieces of paper under it and reinstall to see if that works. However, I don't know if it's the agates or the knives that aren't exactly the same height and I could be 'fixing' the wrong thing! I don't want to pop out the knives unless absolutely necessary, but I could maybe figure out how to measure the agates from bottom to the lower point of the 'V'. Any suggestions on how best to fix (if needed) and get the knives and bearings squared up?

If I'm not mistaken, the agate bearing float somewhat providing limited movement such as self centering. I've been wrong before

Have you checked closely for debris in there?

If there is some divergence in dimensions, it is possible to hone the longer edge a little. Use a medium and fine stone and be slowly deliberate, checking dimensions frequently. Kinda like honing an old Model 70 trigger and sear.

If you want to/willing to send it out, Scott Parker does amazing work.

Lots of you tube videos out there.

Bean may be willing to help. Maybe pm him.

I can understand a little float, but it doesn't seem to be self centering. It's really not centering most of the time. I did clean the bearings. I'm going to wait to see if I get any more ideas before I start honing one of the edges since they actually might be true. They are currently sharp.

Had a similar problem with mine. The pillar that the beam sits on wasn't straight. Loosen the screw under the scale that hold the pillar and straighten it out. This may be your problem.

I can understand a little float, but it doesn't seem to be self centering. It's really not centering most of the time. I did clean the bearings. I'm going to wait to see if I get any more ideas before I start honing one of the edges since they actually might be true. They are currently sharp.

cape cove said:

Had a similar problem with mine. The pillar that the beam sits on wasn't straight. Loosen the screw under the scale that hold the pillar and straighten it out. This may be your problem.

Click to expand...

It looks straight to me. By straighten it out did you mean make it (and therefore the bearings) perfectly perpendicular to the beam and in alignment to the knives? I wonder why that screw appears to be held under tension by a flat steel spring? That flat spring runs quite a distance to the left and I'm not sure what function it has there. I removed the agates again and noticed little nubs of metal that they rest on. Interesting to see all these little details that were used to design this scale and maybe all the things that can affect precision.

On my M-5 there is a screw under the scale that holds the pillar the agate bearings sit on. My pillar wasn't straight and made the beam float too much and the beam pointer would not sit where it is suppose to. I loosened the screw and straightened the pillar making it perpendicular to the beam. That solved my problem. There is no spring on mine.