Digital Calipers and Height Gauges Questions?

[richard poitras]

Digital Calipers and Height Gauges Questions?

It’s getting that time of the year when my relatives are asking me for stocking stuffers and I am thinking about getting / asking for a fractional digital caliper and a digital height gauge. Can any one that has these tools make some recommendations as to a good set at a reasonable price? Any Pros or cons? Which ones are the best? Things to look for? Insider info on different models and such. I see that Woodcraft has the Wixey calipers for 29.99 and the height gauge 44.99 till 11-25-09.. What’s the general consciences?

....I currently have a Beal tilt box...


Thanks Richard

[Steve Walls]

I like the Lee Valley Height Gauge, mainly because the display is horizontal, others that I've seen are vertical.
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=61612&cat=1,43513

Carter has what they call a snap gauge, hope to check it out at the WW Show this weekend. Kind of pricey, but maybe santa won't mind.

http://www.carterproducts.com/product.asp?product_id=404&cat_id=71

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I bought an Oshlum 6" from Amazon, 40 bucks I believe. Woodcraft has a Wixey on sale now for less..... Boo..... The Oshlum is pretty good IMO. Has some bad reviews, such as you can't drop it, it will break... Duh. Nice BIG display for us old folk, if that matters to you. I did find out that 49/128 is pretty meaningless. I use the decimal more, since it means more to me than how big 49/128 is. But it is easy to swap. Comes with a calibration certificate. Yeah, big deal, but others don't come with one..... Just for a test, I rapidly moved the caliper in/out/in/out many times to see if it lost it's zero, and it did not.

For a cheapo caliper, I'm happy. No, it's nowhere near a Starrett.

[Richard Wagner]

Why do you need something with Starrett quality anyhow.

I have the Wixey Inclinometer and Dial gauge. They work fine for me. I've even dropped mine (I do that a lot these days) and it still works.

[Bruce Wrenn]

For digital height gauge, get one of the HF plastic digital calipers and build the height gauge from ShopNotes. You can do a search here and see several that have been built over the years. You say "to the hundredth of an inch isn't close enough, then shift it the metric function. Reads to the hundredth of a MM, if I remember correctly. But heck, it wood we are working with. Humidity can change it's size over night. Trust me, I know!

[glenn bradley]

I also have the Lee Valley but modified it (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=130858&d=1256312662) as I like to adjust the height while the gauge is in contact with the cutter. The 'off to the side' configuration never worked too well for me in that function. I made the ShopNotes one mentioned and seen in the pic. It quickly became indispensable and I vowed to make a better one which I just did recently, the LV in the pic. My preference for the straddle-version may be due to my comfort with the ShopNotes/HF one.

I have the Lee Valley fractional digital calipers and although I appreciate the height gauge being in 128ths, the calipers are a bit of a pain with that accuracy. 64ths like the Wixey would be more usable in practice for me. Based on that experience I got my dad the Wixey and the display is quite large too.

[Roger Jensen]

The problem is the denominator is always changing, from 1/2ths all the way to 128ths. I know this sounds trivial, but when you are comparing thicknesses and one piece is 31/128ths and the other one is 7/32nds you need to do too much math in your head (at least I do).

The problem is they have a "feature" that reduces fractions, so in the example above, if the display had not reduced the fraction and it said 28/128ths instead of 7/32nds I would know it was smaller than 31/128ths.

I hope it is only a matter of time before someone comes out with a model I can set the denominator. If I only want to measure to 1/64ths, all of the readings would be in 64ths, not everything from 1/2ths to 1/128ths.

Maybe I'm just too old. I really like a nice dial caliper - it is one of my most used tools in the shop.

Roger

[Wayne Cannon]

My digital caliper just gathers dust, well, er, uh, has migrated to the back of the drawer.

The fractions are almost always either too fine when I don't really care that much, or too coarse when I do care. It's resolution is settable, but it's too much trouble to keep changing it.

My fractional dial caliper gets used all the time. I like the Starrett, not for their accuracy, but because their fractional scale is the outer scale with a decimal inner scale (as opposed to those that are either reversed -- with a fractional inner scale -- or those that have only a fractional scale and no decimal scale).

[Roger Jensen]

What model do you have that you can set the resolution?

Thanks

[richard poitras]

Interesting I never considered the digitals giving to high of an accuracy/broad range in regards to fraction sizes. Like some have said how accurate do you need. I know that’s what you’re looking for. That’s why you have them but cutting and fitting to those tolerances is a bit much and especially if the gauge goes back and forth?

Thanks for the insight, I guess I may rethink this one….

[Myk Rian]

Dial caliper and the Wixey height gauge.

[Jim Foster]

+ 1 on a dial caliper vs. digital.

[Wayne Cannon]

Roger, unfortunately, it only says "Made in China".