Anybody use Carbon fiber inch, metric, fractional caliper?

[Tom Walz]

Looks cool

Maybe a little small?

http://www.davis.com/Product/Light_Weight_Carbon_Fiber_0_3_digital_calipers/YX-97152-01?referred_id=3388&gclid=CP7W1cKLq7sCFStBQgodZDMAxw

Like to have some practical reason to buy one.

(I'm going to buy one because it is a tool I don't have. Just looking for some sort of reasonable excuse besides early Christmas.)

Tom

[Larry Edgerton]

I have several fractional calipers around the shop. I would not be without them, especially as I get older and my eyes are not what they used to be. There are many, many uses for this tool.

That one is too small in my opinion. And I like the dial type.

Larry

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Heck yes I use my dial calipers a lot. That one is way cheaper than the starrett I reach for the most, so because it's such a bargain, you really need it! I agree with Larry, I prefer dial over digital, but to each their own.

[Duane Meadows]

+1 more on the dial caliper. I have one each dial and digital, prefer the dial. Both of mine are 6", three may be a bit limiting. If the question is about the carbon fiber part, I think it should be both strong, and stable enough, though both of mine are stainless steel.

[Bill Geibe]

I have a digital in the garage and a digital/fractional in the wood shop. I think there's another one floating around the house somewhere because it was on sale and I couldn't resist. Very handy tools, all 6" and all stainless steel. They've become so amazingly cheap since they were introduced years ago.

Tom, I think you owe it to your happiness to get one!

[Kevin Groenke]

Indispensable tool - need to measure a drill bit to determine if it's a #1, an A, or a 15/64"? Done! However, in this case "carbon fiber" = plastic and is not superior to a metal product.

Imported dial or digital calipers with SS bodies are pretty widely available for similarly low prices (enco, grizzly, shars, amazon, harbor freight, etc.) I find 4" to be a good pocket size, I think the 3" would be limiting and possibly awkward to use.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I have three digital calipers - but - only one is fractional.
I use it the most.

One thing to remember about the el cheapo ones.
Take the button battery out when you're not using it, otherwise it goes dead PDQ.

[Dan Hintz]

I see everyone saying "Buy it, it's an indispensable tool!" (which is true)... but carbon fiber? Seems like an odd (and potentially poor) choice of materials to make this tool out of. For the extra $5, I'd get a 6" non-CF version from Harbor Freight.

On a side note, picked up a 6" Brown & Sharpe on Black Friday for around $60... sweet deal, couldn't get a hold of the Mitutoyo.

[Art Mann]

I use a Harbor Freight 8 inch stainless steel digital caliper I bought many years ago for the princely sum of $12. It doesn't do fractions but I have adjusted to that. If you have a Harbor Freight store near by, check and see if they have what you are looking for. That plastic one looks a little expensive to me, although I am sure it is more than accurate enough for woodworking applications.

[Bruce Wrenn]

All calipers / dial indicators read in fractions - tenths, hundredths, and thousandths. Much easier to add and subtract, then look at chart on the cover of the case to see what that is in 64th's.

[Phil Thien]

Is that thing really even made carbon fiber? Carbon fiber, while sounding high-tech, wouldn't be my first choice of materials for a small tool like that.

[mark kosse]

Tom, I keep a cheap plastic 3" vernier caliper that reads in 32nds in my apron. I wouldn't,t be without it. I wouldn't own a digital one but if you don't mind batteries I'd go for it. Always having one around in a pocket is indispensable.

[Lee Reep]

I have three digital calipers - but - only one is fractional.
I use it the most.

One thing to remember about the el cheapo ones.
Take the button battery out when you're not using it, otherwise it goes dead PDQ.

Some of the newer ones (event cheap Harbor Freight models) do have auto shutoff. One thing I've learned to do is lock the knob on top after I turn mine off, since jarring it caused it to power on several times.

Until I bought my contractors calculator that does Imperial to metric conversion (and fractions!) I used to use my digital calipers for conversion of units. Handy for quick conversions. BY the way, Home Depot has the basic contractor calculator model for $15, cheaper than most places, including Amazon.

Nice digital caliper trick:
Need to measure the distance between two holes (same diameter, of course)? Measure hole diameter. Reset to zero without moving blades. Now measure from outer edge of one hole to outer edge of the other. Caliper reads distance between centers.

[Duane Meadows]

Quote from Wiki...

"The Airbus A350 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350_XWB) is built of 53% CFRP[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-fiber-reinforced_polymer#cite_note-presentation-3) including wing and fuselage components, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner), 50%. Specialist aircraft designer and manufacturer Scaled Composites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites) have made extensive use of CFRP throughout their design range including the first private spacecraft Spaceship One (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceship_One)."

Not strong or stable enough for a 3" caliper? Really?:confused:

[Phil Thien]

Quote from Wiki...

"The Airbus A350 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350_XWB) is built of 53% CFRP[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-fiber-reinforced_polymer#cite_note-presentation-3) including wing and fuselage components, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner), 50%. Specialist aircraft designer and manufacturer Scaled Composites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites) have made extensive use of CFRP throughout their design range including the first private spacecraft Spaceship One (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceship_One)."

Not strong or stable enough for a 3" caliper? Really?:confused:

I don't think anyone is saying CF isn't strong enough, just not ideal for this application.

But, that thing can't be carbon fiber, can it? Carbon fiber is a material, made of fibers (threads) of carbon. They typically use many layers of carbon fiber material, in a mold, bonded with resin, to get a finished product. The item listed here looks like it is injection molded, right? You can't injection mold carbon fiber, can you?

I'm asking, I really don't know for certain.

[Bill Geibe]

I have a a road bike and a mountain bike with carbon fiber frames (and CF handlebars on another one of my mountain bikes) and a set of golf clubs with CF shafts. They make race cars with CF frames. Like mentioned above, though, I'm sure there's different qualities of CF. Is the caliper 'quality' CF or plastic with a few CF fibers thrown in the mix? Who knows? General usually makes good value measuring tools, though. Not Starrett quality but decent stuff for the money.

Make sure you get one with auto-shutoff (they probably mostly are these days). I have one that's not and it's a battery hog because I sometimes forget to turn it off. I bought a pack of batteries from eBay just to have spares handy.

[Duane Meadows]

I don't think anyone is saying CF isn't strong enough, just not ideal for this application.

But, that thing can't be carbon fiber, can it? Carbon fiber is a material, made of fibers (threads) of carbon. They typically use many layers of carbon fiber material, in a mold, bonded with resin, to get a finished product. The item listed here looks like it is injection molded, right? You can't injection mold carbon fiber, can you?

I'm asking, I really don't know for certain.

Apparently, yes it can be.

http://www.zoltek.com/applications/automotive/

[Dan Hintz]

Quote from Wiki...

"The Airbus A350 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350_XWB) is built of 53% CFRP[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-fiber-reinforced_polymer#cite_note-presentation-3) including wing and fuselage components, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner), 50%. Specialist aircraft designer and manufacturer Scaled Composites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites) have made extensive use of CFRP throughout their design range including the first private spacecraft Spaceship One (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceship_One)."

Not strong or stable enough for a 3" caliper? Really?:confused:

Ferrari and Yugo both had engines made out of metal... but I think we can all agree it's what the companies did with the metal that mattered. Just because they use CF in airplane wings doesn't mean it's a great material for this application.

[Phil Thien]

Apparently, yes it can be.

http://www.zoltek.com/applications/automotive/

Yeah, that is pretty neat. I found this other article:

http://www.carbonfibergear.com/what-is-forged-composite-a-new-way-of-using-carbon-fiber/

But it says there are 500k fibers per square inch, which makes me wonder just how long these fibers are.

I was under the impression that carbon fiber got its strength from the long continuous fibers that are woven, as in the laminations of plywood.

When they say 500k per square inch, I'm thinking the fibers aren't particularly long, and I'm beginning to think this is more like the MDF of carbon fibers, but I really don't know.

I think it would be fun to plan with a sheet of laid-up carbon fiber and a piece of injection molder carbon fiber. When I say play with them, I mean hit them with a hammer.

Edit to add: I found another article indicating that jet airplane brake rotors are sometimes made from injection molded carbon fiber. Also mountain bike handlebars. So the MDF analogy doesn't really hold water, LOL.

[Mike Henderson]

I much prefer the mechanical dial calipers to the digital ones. Let's say you're interested in accuracy to 1/32 (or 1/16, if you prefer). You can set the digital to read in 32nds (or 16ths) but when you get the reading you don't know whether you're slightly under or over what the dial says. With a mechanical dial, you can see whether the thing you're measuring is bigger or smaller than the closest 32nd (or 16th).

And if you can't set the caliper to read in 32nds (or 16ths) you'll go crazy trying to figure out what 37/128 is.

Mike

[Art Mann]

I use my digital calipers to check and adjust my planer. I look for consistency within 0.005". +/- 1/32 might as well be +/- a quarter inch for that application. If I am only looking to maintain accuracy of +/- 1/32, it is usually a piece that is long enough that a caliper won't fit. In that case, I use a precision stainless 40 inch (1 meter) steel rule or an 18 inch one. If its longer than that, I use a good quality tape and adjust my accuracy expectations downward. In many cases, it is more important to cut multiple pieces the same rather than trying to hold +/- 1/32 or even 1/16. In those situations, I use a stop block or similar.

[Jack Schmidt]

My first employment was working for a company called Graftek that pioneered making carbon fiber products, some for sporting goods (bikes, golf shafts, fishing rods, tennis rackets) as well as automotive, avionic and commercial products (first to make leaf springs and driveshafts for automotive).

The calipers are just a plastic part with some CF in it, not an item to get too excited about unless you want to tout the CF name.

CF can be used in varying ways, all depends on how stiff or resistant you want the product to be. High CF content parts with relatively straight, long fibers and low resin content will be the strongest. Increase the cross-angle +-10 degrees or more to add torsional stiffness. A easy concept that any woodworker who understands grain.

An item such as an airplane wing would be built up using per-impregnated uni-direction fiber tape, laid down in varying degrees to optimize strength and flexibility.

277076

Short fibers can produce good strength as long as there is a high enough content so the fibers can overlap each other in a laminated sense.

[Keith Outten]

I own three sets of 6" calipers. The first is a very old Craftsman dial caliper that was probably made by Starrett. My second caliper is a Mitutoyo digital that is a five digit instrument. The one I use for general shop measurement is a Wixey digital (http://www.wixey.com/calipers/index.html), its an inexpensive instrument that I don't have to worry about dropping and its accurate.

I would shy away from plastic calipers especially since the stainless steel instruments are now so inexpensive.

[Kevin Jenness]

I have had two cheap digital calipers $30-$40) that lasted me 2-3years in full time shop work, and a Mititoyo that has been my workhorse for the rest of more than 25 years. The cheaper ones, I believe only turn off only the display and go through batteries like Kleenex, the Mitutoyo batteries last several years. The cheapos display equal precision, but they come with a rougher sliding action that degrades to the point where the accuracy is less than the displayed precision. For hobby use, a low budget digital caliper will be an advance, but for serious use $120 is a reasonable price to pay for prolonged accuracy.

I don't like mechanical calipers in a woodshop as the rack and pinion tends to get clogged with fine dust. If you get one, keep it in a case when not in use. As far as relative measurements go, the digital models are easier to zero out, and usually show a minus sign when the reading is less than zero.