Impulse Buy - Calipers

[Highpower]

With half a dozen calipers and depth gauges already, I need these like I need another hole in the head. :nono:

But for the sale price of these "tri-readout" tools, I could not pass these up. I think the fractional display could prove to be useful at times. :biggrin:

Reid Supply

 

[Uncle Buck]

Just dirt cheap aren't they. Anymore it is hard to justify spending big money on dial or digital calipers if you ask me. At least not for a HS guy. I have a couple sets of those myself, one set is a little guy like 4" long. I have really grown fond of that small set.

 

[Highpower]

How much for the Dog please??? :worship:

Sorry Bill, but he's not for sale.







This last guy on the other hand..............

 

[Highpower]

Amazingly cheap.

There is a reason for that Rusty. LOL.

I received them today, and as I expected they are made in China. Quality is about on par with what you find at Harbor Freight. And like HF - some tools are ok and some are not. I got one of each. The 8 inch calipers are usable and actually better than the $9.00 HF 6 inch calipers I have, that get tossed around a lot. (I don't do that with the Mitutoyo ABSOLUTE models I have of course.) :nono:

But the depth gauge I got is going to be returned ASAP. The read head feels really gritty when moving and it looks dirty underneath. It almost looks like cast iron dust. :headscratch:
The scale body was cut wrong and the vernier zero is located about an eighth of an inch behind the end of the body. Also the display on the 6 inch gauge stops at 5.9 inches. :nuts:

Oh well... one out of two - is better than none out of two, right? :biggrin:

 

[jgedde]

---

I have the same ones! But cost a lot more $$, and are branded with "General." They're decent enough, but most annoying because they lose their zero when they power off. That's just a mistake waiting to happen... I also find them a bit heavy.

The caliper I've fallen in love with is a Brown and Sharpe dial caliper purchased from my friends at Long Island Indicator. It's never let me down, and Rene' at LII gave me a good price. The B&S caliper and my Compac DTI are absolute joys to work with!

http://longislandindicator.com/ Their website is a little weird in that it appears to simply be a hyperlinked and indexed version of a catalog or some such document. Nonetheless, their sire is a wealth of information about measuring instruments. They are heavily biased towards Swiss made stuff. I'm learning the hard way that appears to be the case.

John

 

[Highpower]

Update:
Reid sent me an email saying they are not going to issue a RMA, but they are going to credit me for the depth gauge. It's not worth the cost of shipping to send it back. I can't argue with that.

So I guess I'll just cut the excess off of the end of the frame to let it zero correctly, and clean it up best I can. It still won't have the full 6 inch range, but at least now it was FREE.

 

[Higher Precision]

fraction calipers

A few years ago, Fowler was one of the first to roll out with calipers that measure in fractions. They are just starting to become a little more popular these days. Its not a feature that you would use every day but also a nice additional feature to have besides just inch/mm. These are a bit more money that what you would pay at Harbor Freight but much better quality as well. I believe they also have a few digital indicators that measure in in/mm/fraction now as well. The 54-100-330-1 Euro Cal IV seems to be the best quality one I have seen that measures in fraction.

Hope this is helpful.

Nick

 

[Tony Wells]

Several years ago I bought a Starrett fractional readout tape measure thinking I would use it in woodbutchering. I'm not even sure where I put it last. In the shop, my mind does decimals by itself, even when using a tape, so in the shop, the fractional digits were confusing to this already feeble mind. I have gotten used to a Stanley Fat Max while wood working, and I like it.

 

[kdupuis]

For critical measurements i have starrets and mititoyo calipers but for the dirty work we have the cheaper General brand digital calipers. I use the right tool depending on the job.