Calipers

TruthTellers,

Sorry about the late reply. You are absolutely correct in your post. I have found though, that a small burr that lets light through the closed jaws can be easily removed by passing a piece of very fine emory cloth between the jaws a few times under a moderate amount of tension.

This trick can save an otherwise good pair of calipers from being scrapped.

This little trick was taught to me by Dr. Suga from Metutoyo during a metronics seminar that I attended almost two decades ago. Damn, I'm getting old!:p Beats the alternative though.:)
 
Jumpin Geez

I kindasorta agree....

If you look at some of the older B+S,or Starrett Johannsen gauge block sets,you may find a small,fine,translucent grade hard arkansas stone.(If its not "lost")
When needed,thats to float any offending high spot off the gage block,holding it flat .
I want a very fine,very flat hard Arkansas or ceramic stone to stone a high spot off a jaw.
The probem with drawing sand paper through is paper lacks form. It will round the tips of the jaws.

I have no problem with floating a little ding off.

FWIW,I can't tell you all the science,but if you are looking through a light gap between mic or caliper jaws,using natural light,a gap less than .0005 will appear blue.Breakover .0005,the blue disappears. Something about wavelengths. Grab a good mic and try it. Clean carbide faces help.
 
If you reload ammo, then it's calipers and calibers; ya cant' have one without the other (sounds like an old song...).

I have 3, two RCBS (plastic, made by the Swiss) and one stainless one made in China. I knocked my old RCBS caliper off my reloading bench about a month ago, and kind of screwed up the dial (I thought), so I got a new one, my second RCBS dial caliper.

On my old one, I could turn the rim on the dial and bring it back to zero, but it didn't line-up like it did before the fall, and I thought I'd wrecked it. Turns out after I got the new one, that the old one is dead-nuts right on with the new one, and the one from China is less than .001" from the two from RCBS. For my reloading purposes, I'm way good to go. All three are all good, and all three were way less than 40 bucks each.
 
Dial vernier

I have had cheap digital vernier calipers in the past. The batteries never last and are expensive.

I have a dial vernier by Mititoyo I have had it for 30 years, with no issues whatsoever.

Better to spend the money on a tool that does the job, than waste money on a piece of China crap.
 
C7AR15,

Point of terminology: Vernier caliper refers to calipers that use a type of scale invented by the French mathematician by that name to resolve the finest part (aka, least count) of the reading. They are older technology than either dial or digital calipers, which use a dial or a digital distance counter instead of a vernier scale. This is because vernier scales are harder to learn to read. I've never seen a caliper that combined the technologies, as that would be redundant as to purpose.

You can see a good illustration of a vernier scales and calipers and how they work at the Wikipedia.
 
HiBC, Wow! We both go back a long ways. I sure do remember that very fine Arkansas stone that came with most of the older gage block sets. It was the perfect solution for a slight burr on a caliper or even on a mic.

I haven't seen those stones included in a moderately priced gage block set in a long time.:(

I admit that I haven't kept up with the latest technology since I retired about a decade ago but I doubt that things have really changed that much.

Older than you and still sucking air:D
 
I normally use Starrett,Mituotuyo,and Browne and Sharpe calipers.Only the Mituotoyo are digital.I have also used the Chinese calipers in both dial and digital working as a machinist.I used those while running machines that produced a lot of small chips and coolant.They were frequently checked with gage blocks in QC and were accurate.I have a Kobalt digital caliper that is accurate except in one function.The depth rod function was off by .002.Most of the cheap calipers are fine for reloading.
 
I have the two digitals, ones an old Fowler I picked up for cheap in a pawn shop (before there were cheap micrometers) the other is a Starrett replaced for dial that went bad (my fault, you can't get super glue on them)

Both are very good with batteries life. I do keep a spare battery in the gun box as I take those to the range for COAL adjustments.


When I started Surveying the guy had a Swiss made Wild T-16 (works well for Alaskan woods of course) Direct numbers read, optical plum bob (tricky to set up but once you learned how to do it I could setup on the side of a cliff)

Technically it was a one minute gun, you could estimate down to about 10 seconds and get a solid 20 second results.

Then I wound up working various vernier Transits off and on. What a total pain. What a great way to make a mistake.

When I started working for the next guy a lot, why are we using this George Washington tech level transit, I know you have a T-16. He didn't know how to set it up (that tricky optical plumb bob that's immune to wind)

Ok, I do and can, if I am going to be the gunner (transit operator) then...... End of story, it got retired.
 
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