Calipers

[Jim Allen]

There's a thread in "General Woodworking..." that mentioned calipers, which got me reminiscing. When I bought my first digital caliper 4 or 5 years ago, I transferred my dial caliper from my workshop to my office. The calipers I was using in my office, pictured here, got transferred to my tool bucket. Just like my digital this one (over 50 years old) does both inches and millimeters, proving what goes around comes around.

[Bruce Page]

That is a true vernier scale caliper. I have a 14” vernier caliper & a 10” vernier height gauge but both are becoming more difficult to read as I age..
I much prefer dial type calipers. I never liked the digital type and I tried several of them.

[Mike Henderson]

That is a true vernier scale caliper. I have a 14” vernier caliper & a 10” vernier height gauge but both are becoming more difficult to read as I age..
I much prefer dial type calipers. I never liked the digital type and I tried several of them.

I'm with you, Bruce, on liking dial calipers. The problem with the digital calipers is that the caliper has to round the measurement to the closest reading that it can display (that problem is called "quantization error"). With the dial caliper, you can see if it's a certain measurement and just a bit short or long.

Also, the dial calipers always work. You never go to use it and find that the battery is dead. They should make some of those digital calipers with solar faces, the way some wrist watches are made.

Mike

[lowell holmes]

I have a dial caliper. I like it.

[Jared Sankovich]

I hate digital calipers. Though I do like my digital micrometers

Dial calipers all the way

[Jim Becker]

Since I primarily use the digital calipers because of my CNC machine, I appreciate the actual numeric display as I have to type that number into the software for actual material thickness. Mine is good to four digits and also does fractional and metric. But I can see the appeal of a quality "traditional" caliper and did work well with a dial caliper for non-CNC stuff prior to getting the digital units, including the "over-under" approximation thing. Someone already mentioned eyes...the digital has helped me with that, too.

[Orlando Gonzalez]

I have, and use, dial, vernier, and digital calipers. In the shop I've been using a Starrett dial caliper with fractions reading. Works well.

[Andrew Seemann]

I had forgotten how much I don't miss vernier calipers The shop I used to work in had 12" and 24" Starretts I had to use occasionally. I much prefer digital for working in thousands or mm. For woodworking when I use a caliper, I like using a dial graduated in 1/64s. Not a fan of digital fractional calipers, the dial seems much easier to read. "57/64th" is harder to visualize than "a shade over 7/8s"

[Mike Henderson]

I have, and use, dial, vernier, and digital calipers. In the shop I've been using a Starrett dial caliper with fractions reading. Works well.

I have the Starrett fractional dial caliper. I started getting worried that the dirt and dust in the shop would cause it to fail so I bought the iGaging fractional dial caliper. It's really excellent - as accurate as the Starrett and operates pretty much the same (feel). I use that one in my shop now and don't worry about whether it will get gunked up. I see it's $30 now.

Mike

[Bill Dufour]

I have a pair of 6" dial calipers with two needles. one for metric one for English. I do not think it has a brand name on it. bought at a yard sale years ago.
Bil lD.

[Mike Henderson]

I posted yesterday about the iGaging fractional caliper and this morning I get an email from Popular Woodworking that one of their "Trusted Partners" has it on sale for $24. I don't know if that was just a coincidence or whether big brother is watching. But $24 is a good price for that caliper. And I've ordered other things from that company before.

Mike

[Oops, I don't know if they offer free shipping, so that may make it more expensive than from Amazon. Check before you click.]

[Jim Becker]

That is an excellent price, Mike...I paid $31.50 from Lee Valley.

[Gary Ragatz]

[Oops, I don't know if they offer free shipping, so that may make it more expensive than from Amazon. Check before you click.]

Just ordered one - $4.35 for standard shipping, so still $0.60 cheaper than Amazon (and it's always nice to support somebody other than Amazon).

[Frank Martin]

I would not have any worries with Chipsfly. It is owned by Lewis Stepp. I purchased a WoodRat from him 15 years ago. Then he released Router Boss, a much improved version. Great guy and takes care of his customers.

[John K Jordan]

...iGaging fractional caliper ... $24 ... Popular Woodworking "Trusted Partner"...
[Oops, I don't know if they offer free shipping, so that may make it more expensive than from Amazon. Check before you click.]

I called and asked. The guy said shipping to TN would be $4-$5, about $7 something if I ordered two. Amazon prime price at the moment is $29.95.

PS, I tried to check the amazon price history with camelcamelcamel. Their web page says they had a catastrophic server failure due to simultaneous failure of three drives. Expected to back up in a few days. Estimated cost is over $44K, about $30K of that for data recovery. Yikes.

JKJ