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Thread: What calipers do I need?

  1. #11
    Site Supporter farscott's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Balisong View Post
    I appreciate the responses everyone. This is the one I think I'm landing on, sold by Amazon and Brownells:
    https://www.amazon.com/Mitutoyo-505-...8-4&th=1&psc=1
    Unless anyone thinks that's not precise enough for sights? The reviews already mention using it for cases/reloading which will be my other use.
    From a measurement standpoint, the Mitutoyo dial caliper is great. What is not so great with any dial caliper with an unsealed rack is that powder, lead, and/or brass shavings will get into the mechanism, ruining any measurement. For that reason, I have gone to Vernier calipers and micrometers. All of mine with the exception of an Etalon Swiss Vernier caliper have been bought used. I have older Brown & Sharpe and Starett pieces.

  2. #12
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    Another vote here for Mitutoyo Digimatic. I have 6, 8 (ip67), and 12”. I bought 24” for the shop.

    I recently wanted to add another set of calipers to my reloading bench. I didn’t really want to spend Mitutoyo money on them. I had heard good things about the Insize calipers. I bought one with a certificate of calibration off of Amazon for less than $50. Are they as refined as the Mits? No. Are they strangely heavier? Yes. Are they dead nuts on through their whole range, as compared to stacks of gauge blocks? Yes. Is the battery life orders of magnitude better than Starrett? Yes.

    At this point, I wouldn’t buy a mechanical set of calipers. I like having an incremental mode and no exposed rack. Mitutoyo have Aimpoint like battery life.

  3. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Spartan1980 View Post
    A work of art they are. Never could bring myself to actually purchase some myself.
    Well, it was towards the end of the auction and no one else wanted to bid...

    (I lived in Seattle. Boeing used to use a zillion small suppliers for parts. An ambitious young guy could learn the trade, buy a machine and put it in his garage and start making parts; if he was good he could grow it into a business. Then, at about the time I was getting into hobby machining, some beancounter decided to only use a few big suppliers. There was a machine shop going out of business auction every week for a few years. This was before Ebay, etc, so the local market just got totally saturated. It was great for me, but it broke your heart to see the owner with an anguished look on his face watching his dreams sell for pennies on the dollar. IIUC the new system didn't work out too well for Boeing either, at least initially. I dunno if they stuck with it or not.)

    A shop I worked in had a set of .......

    Wait for it......


    72”ers! We rarely had a need to use them and I got the pleasure of using them on several occasions. I worked there for a couple years before I even knew they were in the tool crib high up on a shelf. They were in basically new condition for obvious reasons. It took two people to use them too. They probably weighed 45lbs or more and were a site to behold with the craftsmanship in them.
    Dang! Seems kinda hard to get a sensitive feel working like that?? And the problem of keeping them parallel to the axis of measurement would be huge... What kind of tolerance were you holding?

  4. #14
    My recommendation is digital. The batteries in my Mitutoyo seem to last 4 or 5 years.

    One engineer on my team has the solar version and it seems to work great if you leave it sitting on a desk all day. Not good of it sits in a case/bag all the time.

  5. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by whomever View Post
    Dang! Seems kinda hard to get a sensitive feel working like that?? And the problem of keeping them parallel to the axis of measurement would be huge... What kind of tolerance were you holding?
    You could actually get a decent feel with them if your part geometry was a flat plane. A lot of times it took two people to use them. One to hold the fixed jaw in place and one to do the actual measuring. They were really rigid, precise and frigging HEAVY! Tolerance would have been less than +/- .010". For above .020" tolerance we used good calibrated tape measures. Yes we really had to protect the ends on them and check them often, like every use on close work. It was an oilfield shop but we did some cool stuff that was a lot closer tolerance than you would think. We made directional drilling tools that was used primarily only on offshore platforms because it was so expensive to run in those days.

    Here's an example of a smaller part. This is a transmitter housing for MWD (measurement while drilling). It also did some rudimentary formation analyzation down hole. It had gamma ray transducers, magnetic sensors, and inclinometers in it. It was made from Incoloy 901.

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  6. #16
    Hokey / Ancient JAD's Avatar
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    I worked I a machining environment where most of our stuff was in the 2-3 mm length and 0.1-0.5 diameter range. I used dial Browne and Sharps for 20 years and recommend them, but there’s nothing terrible about digital mitutoyos. Calipers are good to a half thou, if you need to know better you need micrometers.
    Ignore Alien Orders

  7. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Spartan1980 View Post
    You could actually get a decent feel with them if your part geometry was a flat plane. A lot of times it took two people to use them. One to hold the fixed jaw in place and one to do the actual measuring. They were really rigid, precise and frigging HEAVY! Tolerance would have been less than +/- .010". For above .020" tolerance we used good calibrated tape measures. Yes we really had to protect the ends on them and check them often, like every use on close work. It was an oilfield shop but we did some cool stuff that was a lot closer tolerance than you would think. We made directional drilling tools that was used primarily only on offshore platforms because it was so expensive to run in those days.

    Here's an example of a smaller part. This is a transmitter housing for MWD (measurement while drilling). It also did some rudimentary formation analyzation down hole. It had gamma ray transducers, magnetic sensors, and inclinometers in it. It was made from Incoloy 901.

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    What an awesome post. Seriously cool.
    #RESIST

  8. #18
    Chasing the Horizon RJ's Avatar
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    Jan 2014
    I'll be "that guy" and say I bought one of the Harbor Freight 4" models for $14.99. They are more than adequate for me for low-speed high drag work in measuring Glock sight heights.

    https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-t...per-63710.html

  9. #19
    Site Supporter farscott's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RJ View Post
    I'll be "that guy" and say I bought one of the Harbor Freight 4" models for $14.99. They are more than adequate for me for low-speed high drag work in measuring Glock sight heights.

    https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-t...per-63710.html
    As much of a tool snob as I am, I have to say the Harbor Freight models have checked out very well on gauge blocks. We have several sets of them in usage where tool life is expected to be short or the users can be expected to not take care. We also buy the Harbor Freight multimeters for casual usage. Usually the battery costs more to replace than a new unit, but the measurements have compared nicely to a calibrated precision 6.5 digit meter. For casual lab work, the Harbor Freight units are good tools.

  10. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by RJ View Post
    I'll be "that guy" and say I bought one of the Harbor Freight 4" models for $14.99. They are more than adequate for me for low-speed high drag work in measuring Glock sight heights.

    https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-t...per-63710.html


    Heck, not a thing in the world the matter with that (if it jeeps working!).

    I have one like this (except nominally reading to .001 instead of 1/128 ... don't want to have to be figuring out how many 128ths .339 is :-)):

    https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-t...per-63664.html

    I keep it next to my raw material rack ... when I have a print that requires starting with a piece that is .270x.350x2.650, I use them to sort through the cutoffs to find a suitable one. No need for .001 accuracy there.

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