Test Dial indicator sticking?

[Neil C]

I picked up this Test Dial indicator second-hand off eBay and it’s a well made little device but from the rest position it has a kind of sticking point before it starts moving. In practice you’d zero the work at least a few tho in, past the sticking point so it should not affect it in operation but it concerns me. The spring is good and the needle snaps back to rest when released its just that if you gradually increase the surface contact from rest it hits a point right at the beginning, a tho in or so and then springs past it. I made this little video to show what I mean:

https://youtu.be/nWeiw-D3qkA

If they are designed like this then thats fine but if not then this may be symptomatic of a more serious problem within the mechanism. All the ones I’ve used did not stick like this but I thought I’d come here and ask if anyone has bought one that was like this by design.

Any advice welcome.

[magicniner]

Indicators don't stick unless there is a fault.
Stripping and cleaning may resolve the issue.

[Neil C]

I appreciate the advice, that's what I did in the end. I couldn't be bothered with the whole eBay return fiasco again so I opened it just to have a look and this made a difference to the problem. So I disassemble it, cleaned all the parts and reassembled it. The unit looks almost new with no dust of gunk inside but I think one of the tiny little gears must have been out of position. Reseating them all solved the problem. Works like new.

Think what's expensive?

[magicniner]

Think what's expensive?

Anything.
It's just my stock signature and describes my experience of the majority of skip diving, penny pinching, luddite model engineers and their requests to me to sort out shit they took elsewhere to have done cheaper than I'd quoted them, once I even said "Free but you buy decent materials and the dick went elsewhere! :D