# Micrometers- So Many Choices



## Phil3

I have an inexpensive old 0" - 1" friction stop analog mic. Says "Poland" on the box. Seems to work well enough. I need a 1" - 2" mic. Thinking of digital, but would like to see what others think of this type vs the analog style. Also, need help on quality. One can spend $20 or 7x times that or more. What is that kind of price getting me? Accuracy, additional life, or...? 


- Phil


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## Old Iron

Phil
I have both and use them, I have a couple cheap Chinese Digital Mic's that seem to work good. I've had then about 2 years and I do check them often and they seem to check right every time.

Paul


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## Tony Wells

I'm in the "Buy Quality" camp. I think a guy can do pretty well looking for some of the lesser known brand names, like Fowler for one. If you live in an industrial area, pawn shops can yield good deals, provided you know what to look for as far as wear and damage goes. I think it's a common question that isn't easily answered. Buying new obviously costs more, but you don't have the worries of old, worn out or damaged instruments. But then, in a home shop environment, you probably can get away with a little more than you can in a commercial shop. Some manufacturing facilities require all employee instruments to be in their calibration system and they can and will tell you to get rid of any instrument that fails to meet their standards. Even those instruments often are adequate for home shop use.

Basic requirements (IMO):

Carbide faces
0.0001 resolution (either analog vernier or digital)
Friction thimble, not ratchet (No offense, Ed )
No engraving or grinding on the instrument to remove engraving
No hollow framed larger size micrometers
Standards required
Case if at all possible
There are other things, but I'm blank at the moment.

My brand preferences, in order, for OD micrometers:

Starrett
Mitutoyo
Brown & Sharp
Lufkin
Fowler
Sherr-Tumico
General 

There are others, such as Craftsman, Etalon, Helios, various store brands that tool houses offer. Of course, this is just on OD micrometers. Depth and ID are a different story. And bore gages.....and, and, and....


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## Phil3

*Re: Micrometers- So Many Choices, Terminology*

Looking at MSC, I find terminology I am not entirely familiar with.

- Friction (I got that).
- Plain (I gather this to be a direct connect between fingers and force applied to thimble).
- Ratchet
- Ratchet Friction
- Ratchet Stop

I know ratchet means you can not apply too much force, but the ratchet and friction together? And what is the "stop" term mean?

- Phil


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## Tony Wells

Ahh..hehe, you guys just need your bifocals adjusted. I like the slant line mics.


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## Tony Wells

My glasses give me fits at times. I had excellent vision until I turned 44 I believe, but since then, it's been a downhill slide. Least favorite task: touching off a tool. I used to be able to hit a could of tenths contact, but now maybe a couple of thousandths. Why couldn't I have been nearsighted??

I have some dangerous micrometers. Some very old Starrett mandrel mics with the lines worn practically off. Way before chrome, so patina makes everything blend. I actaully have two sets, a 6-9" and a 9-12" if I remember right. Might post a pic, just for grins. They're definitely antiques.

I have a 0-1/2 Starrett, but it's a ball mic. Not so old, chromed.


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## BRIAN

How about this one. my dad bought it around 1920 I think, its been in use ever since, its my pride and joy .

Starret still make this type of micrometers,

Brian


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## Hawkeye

I picked up this set at a pawn shop. I had seen it there a year ago and it hadn't moved, so I talked him down to $55. He had said it was a Starrett set, but only the 1" turned out to be a 436.

The rest of the set is from Central Tool Co., Cranston, RI. Anybody know anything about this manufacturer?

I have a 1" bar from another 2" mic and the 3" bar that came with this set. I set the 3" and 4" mics off the 3" bar and the 2" mic off the 1" bar.


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## Hawkeye

Thanks for the link, Ed. I see I forgot to attach a photo.


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## Tony Wells

May be wrong, but I think I read that they made S-T brand also.


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## Tony Wells

Perhaps it's the other way around. Or not.

I had a Central bore gage made for automotive work and gave it away. Too much trouble to set.


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## Tony Wells

Pretty handy, those disc mics. I wish I could find one of those for $10!


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## Tony Wells

You tried calling them directly? Number is on their contact page:

02 9620 6944

Hard to believe that no one reps for them in Au. Tell them you're going to have to buy Mitutoyo if they don't come around.


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## Tony Wells

You'd think so, if your economy is like ours. Have to spend too much time with sales guys now peddling their wares.

If you want a catalog, someone over here could mail you one, I'm sure. Or put in a materials request at the US site and see if they are smart enough to pass it on to the Australian branch.


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## Ed.

Just recently bought my first Mitutoyo digital Micrometer, Digimatic Model no. 293-330, it's an used one from ebay, $110 plus $22 delivery to Oz, , coolant resistant to IP65 and much more accurate than my vernier caliper, actually has much more accuracy than I will ever use. .001mm or .00005", it is nice to use and I am happy with it, there were a couple of cheaper ones on ebay, even new ones for about the same price but the sellers wouldn't post to Australia. So this one will do me, now looking for the next size up as well... it never ends! :biggrin:


Cheers

Ed.


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## Tom Griffin

Here are a few more to add to the pot. They are all American (past and present) and European made. I don't care for the Asian brands, including Mitutoyo because the frames never seem rigid enough. My absolute favorite is the Swiss made Etalon. It is super rigid and will read reliably to tenths all day long. I still have and use the first Etalon that I bought 40 years ago.




I have a thing for Lufkin tools. Something about the old German craftsmanship. I have a tool box full of NOS Lufkin tools that I've collected over the years. Don't use them much, just keep them around to look at.




Etalon is by far the best micrometer on the market. It has a super rigid frame carbide faces and silky smooth operation. It's only drawback is that it's a little difficult to get in tight places, so it's nice to have a backup Starrett or Lufkin on hand.




Not sure where the Scherr-Tumico came from. I don't care for it and wouldn't recommend it.




This Lufkin I actually use. It has large thin faces on the spindle that are handy for measuring the distance between slots. It's also good for measuring soft materials like paper or cork.




I'm not a huge Starrett fan, but this solid frame mic is nice. This one happens to be metric.




This one is very handy for measuring in tight places. I use it quite often.




You need a depth mic as well. This Starrett has a thin, non-rotating rod that is very nice to use.




This is the Starrett Mul-T-Anvil micrometer, a very handy mic. It can be used to measure height, wall thickness, and outside diameters. Mitutoyo makes one called the Uni Mike but it's not as compact as this one.




This one is for measuring the width of a slot or the thickness of a ridge. Handy when you need it.




This is a screw pitch micrometer with interchangeable anvils. It's the only Mitutoyo micrometer that I own at the moment.




This is the Etalon I bought when I started college 40 years ago. It's been used steadily over the years, often daily. It's works as well today as it was when I first bought it.

Tom


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## KevinL

I have a complete set 0-6” Starrett but if I was doing it today I think I would get Mitutoyo mics.  Was kind of hard when I started buying all my tools years ago when there was a sign outside in the employee parking lot asking if you drive an American made car…..The one exception to buying Mitutoyo would be the Starrett No. 449 Non Rotating Blade Depth mic; this is the one to get in my opinion.   I do like my Starrett tools though as you can see from the picture at the left.  

That being said I worked with a guy in the toolroom that all of his mics said made in Poland on them.  With our 10[SUP]th[/SUP] reading mics, they had to be calibrated every six months by the Quality Dept. and they would only be good for three years top and would not hold calibration for parallelism on the faces.   

I know that about fifteen years ago I toured the Scherr-Tumico (S-T Industries) facility in St. James MN.  According to them at that time they and Starrett were the only American made manufacture of mics left.  They made it sound like the only reason that they still made mics was because of time of war, they federal government wanted these to be available within our borders. 
I know at that time they still engraved the entire mic because that is what the government required.  After the engraving, they ran them through a laser to darken the lines.

Also at that time they were making mics and combination squares for Sears, B&S, Napa, and Snap On.  As a matter of fact, they were making a lot of tools for B&S. 

Got to see them making a 6’ mic something that I will always remember, beating the two halves together and welding them up.  Really brings it home on how it’s just that 1” that matters the most.

On a side note, I have to provide tools to my high school students if they wish to use college owned tools, and I do not buy very high quality tools for them.  Something about when someone else owns the tools, they don’t get taken care of very well.  The last couple of .0005” test indicators I have bought from Enco, they have had Fowler on them?  Paid like $28 for them……..Did these not pass quality, being made off shore, or both?


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## ChuckB

KevinL said:


> I know that about fifteen years ago I toured the Scherr-Tumico (S-T Industries) facility in St. James MN.  According to them at that time they and Starrett were the only American made manufacture of mics left.  They made it sound like the only reason that they still made mics was because of time of war, they federal government wanted these to be available within our borders.
> I know at that time they still engraved the entire mic because that is what the government required.  After the engraving, they ran them through a laser to darken the lines.
> 
> Also at that time they were making mics and combination squares for Sears, B&S, Napa, and Snap On.  As a matter of fact, they were making a lot of tools for B&S.
> 
> Got to see them making a 6’ mic something that I will always remember, beating the two halves together and welding them up.  Really brings it home on how it’s just that 1” that matters the most.




Speaking of Scherr-Tumico.. I missed this bargin craigslist sell by hours a couple of weeks ago.. Both for 120.00!! I still haven't gotten over it.. I am still feeling sick. Tell me something that might help so I can quit feeling so bad.. :angry:


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## darkzero

I buy Mitutoyo as first priority whenever possible & 95% of my measuring tools are Mitu. I only own a handful of Starrett tools but most are not for measuring. Not sure if it's still the case these days but for digitals Mitus have far better battery life over Starretts. The tool room keeper at the local CC always complained about this. Nothing wrong with Starrett and other quality brands, I'm just a big fan of Mitutoyo.

Most of the mics below are all ebay steals.


0-1" & 1-2" QuantuMikes. These I bought new but with discount codes. The main feature of the QuantuMike is that the spindle feeds at a faster rate than conventional mics. I love using these.




0.2-1.2" inside mic.




0-6" depth mic w/ data output. This was one of my best ebay scores, it was brand new, the original battery wasn't even used.




0-1" pitch mic.




The two older digital mics don't have as great as battery life as my QuantuMikes or Mitu calipers. Those have excellent battery life!


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## toag

Mics are easy to collect and justify (i just need to measure it!!!)

I have Brown and sharps for 0-2", set of NSK for 0-6" and a pair of Starrett multi anvils for 6-9" and 9-12".  I recommend getting a few different mics til you find the one you like.  I personally love my B&S (swiss made, slick, accurate). and i really like the NSK's.  I like the starretts, mainly because they take up less space, and i dont use them all the time.  I like the analogs, but would get a set of digitals if they were cheap and available.  

I would recommend getting a cheap set of jo blocks to calibrate your mics yearly.  i absolutely don't trust my old beat up, rusty cal rods, i do trust my new cheap, certified chinese blocks. 
Also a mic vise is awesome if you do alot of QA work.


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## Ray C

toag said:


> Mics are easy to collect and justify (i just need to measure it!!!)
> 
> Stuff snipped...   .



Funny... I used to look at all the different kinds of mics and wonder, who the heck ever needs something like that?   LOL:  In the last few days and on the last couple projects, I could have used about 3 or 4 "out of the ordinary" kinds of mics.  -Time to start a better collection....

Still though, I manage to get a lot done with calipers, standard mics, feeler gauges, a set of depth mics and a set of inside expandable hole gauges (forgot what those are called but you know what I mean).


Ray


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## ChuckB

Ray C said:


> Still though, I manage to get a lot done with calipers, standard mics, feeler gauges, a set of depth mics and a set of inside expandable hole gauges (forgot what those are called but you know what I mean).
> 
> 
> Ray



I know some top Harley mechanics who get by with what you have.. the quality of work is only as good as the person behind the tool. A good tool will not make up for a poor mechanic or machinist.


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## Ray C

Chuck...  Believe it or not, on a sheave I was making that had a shoulder, I found myself using my dad's old calipers like the two on the left below and when all was said and done, everything worked-out just peachy.









ChuckB said:


> I know some top Harley mechanics who get by with what you have.. the quality of work is only as good as the person behind the tool. A good tool will not make up for a poor mechanic or machinist.


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## toag

as much as harleys are in the shop, i'd suspect that all harley mechanics are top notch!!
kidding of course

yes the painter matters more than the brush, I totaly agree, i am still painting by numbers... but mics are a good investment, and are a cheapish buy.  Like anything, you can do alot with the basics, telescoping gages, feeler gages, nice set of calipers.  having more doesnt make you better, but it does give you an additional, and sometimes faster way to make a measurement or reference.


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## Ray C

Fate...  I just hopped onto eBay and a set basically identical to what's shown below was ending in 4 minutes with an auction start at $9.00.  What the heck... I punched-in for 10 bucks.  -Was the sole bidder and won.  I was after the 1st one shown below, with outward protruding tangs.  Could have used those many times on this last project.  And the pointy ones? -Couldn't tell you how many times I've wanted to measure between two points and the regular calipers wouldn't fit in the cramped quarters...

Old fashioned doesn't mean obsolete...




Ray C said:


> Chuck...  Believe it or not, on a sheave I was making that had a shoulder, I found myself using my dad's old calipers like the two on the left below and when all was said and done, everything worked-out just peachy.


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## TOOLNUT

The "pointy" things are really called dividers and are often used for scribing lines ( circles and arcs) on templates and other layouts, often on sheet metal.. They are also used to check distances between lines on layouts and drawings.

The ones with the crooked ends are called inside and outside calipers, depending on which way they curve.  Sometimes any of them are called spring calipers as a general name..

When I was an apprentice the lathe boss encouraged me to check the piece that I was making,  with the outside calipers and then transfer it to inside calipers. Then he had me check the inside calipers with regular mic's and gage my accuracy,  by comparing that with a reading of the od of the part made with regular mic's also.

Might have to read that one a second time as I did not do a very good job with such long sentences.  

 Was a good thing to know that I could do such measuring if I did not have better tools and might be called a skill builder,  but I have found very few times that it was needed, after that.  However it did go a long way toward developing a feel for making measurements.
Jerry


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## onecut jimmy

TOOLNUT said:


> The "pointy" things are really called dividers and are often used for scribing lines ( circles and arcs) on templates and other layouts, often on sheet metal.. They are also used to check distances between lines on layouts and drawings.
> 
> The ones with the crooked ends are called inside and outside calipers, depending on which way they curve.
> 
> I had the same thing taught me. If I were advising anyone where to start in this business or hobby I would tell them to devlop their feel. Calipers are a good way to start. I can measure as acurately with them as I or anyone can with mics.and mics are limited by size and shape while calipers aren't.
> Newbies really should practice using measuring tools while an experienced user is present to check them.
> Does anybody still use verniers? I do.


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## Tony Wells

I do, Jimmy. I have a couple of verniers. One is a 24", the other a 40", but it's actually graduated out and usable to 42.500". I'll admit to having had a few shorter ones, but gave them away. I have too many dial and digitals in the 6, 8, and 12" sizes. But I do use my 24"s regularly.


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## onecut jimmy

Tony Wells said:


> I do, Jimmy. I have a couple of verniers. One is a 24", the other a 40", but it's actually graduated out and usable to 42.500". I'll admit to having had a few shorter ones, but gave them away. I have too many dial and digitals in the 6, 8, and 12" sizes. But I do use my 24"s regularly.



I also have 24" vernier , 6" and my prized possesion a 6" depth gauge I got the day I started my Tool and Die training and injection mold making I had avernier height gauge but I sol d it.
I'm curios. What do you do that requires 24" verniers?
Darn my typing is worse than my handwriting Not really.


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## Tony Wells

Some of the parts I run are shaft-like in nature, so I have OAL and shoulder to shoulder dimensions to hold. Mostly linear measurement. I have mics to 24", plus a nice shop made adjustable mandrel mic that reaches a little larger. Haven't needed it in a while though. Turning, I don't do much large work. Don't want the work, don't need it. Plenty of small work.


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## zenon52

Hi! just wanted to chime in  I am not much of a machinist  -  but am learning a lot in my old age,  My grandfather was a tool and die maker  back in the day he retired in the late 50's.  When he retired remember going to the plant where he worked with my mother to pick up his tool boxes.  I always loved looking inside at all the "stuff".  today I have most of his tools in my shop  mostly L. S. Starrett  and B&S measuring tools.  I am far from a professional but for some reason the feel of the old Starrett mikes  feel nice in your hand as compared to some of the others out there today.


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## Farmer Dodds

I have used Verniers and calipers mostly.  I use a mic some but am not comfortable with it, just need more practice.  Good thread, lots of good info.


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## Tony Wells

For really picky people, this is the way to go:





Also for those with deep pockets. But there's no arguing tenths with one of those.


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## GK1918

Oh boy I hear you Tony about the eyeballs.  Aside from my Starrets my favorite is a common no name
from the hardware store its dead on .001 inc. why? cause i can read it. big big numbers.  So I really
want to try a direct reading with no batterys hate batterys.  sam


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## Tony Wells

I kind of have a dislike for everything in the shop that uses batteries. I have a B&S digital caliper that is accurate, smooth and nice.....like brand new, but it will stay that way because I never use it. It stays in its box. Same with a Mit digital depth mic, reads in half-tenths, nice and brand new, but will stay in the box. I don't have, nor plan to ever have any digital OD mics. I have used them, but generally prefer the feel of the old fashioned standard micrometer. Very seldom is there a need for the accuracy that seems to be available with them.


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## brucer

I have pretty much the same opinion as Tony..

 I like using digital calipers though, and I also have a back up set of6", 8" and 12" dial calipers to go along with my 6", 8" and 12" digital calipers..


 Micrometers, I like Starrett, Brown&sharpe, Mitutoyo.. I've used good Fowler and Lufkin mics also... The best set of mics I used were some Starrett quality control mics, they were carbide faced, had an extra heavy frame, and they were certified once a month and kept in a clean room, very smooth.


 Whats a set of 0-6" Brown&sharpes in a wood case with standards going for?


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## Tony Wells

Well, I do have a very well worn pair of 8" Mits that have been with me for years and have been faithful. I just didn't replace the batteries the last time they went down and put them in the drawer. I did like them for the floating zero feature. They look war torn and beat up, but last time I used them, they were fine. I just have so many dial calipers I just switched to them and haven't bothered with getting batteries. I guess I should be using them, so I'll get some batteries. They have a long life in it, so no complaints there.

I do have to make an exception with one or two instruments. I have a Wyler Clinotronic that uses an odd Lithium battery that is hard to find. And I have a Mit profilometer that uses rechargable batteries, but generally use the power supply anyway. Well, one more thing, the B&S TesaHite uses 4 AA batteries, but sees very little use.

I imagine those B&S's would bring a pretty penny. Very desirable from my point of view. I have the Starrett equivalent set, and if I remember right, (many years ago) I paid nearly $600 for them, with case and rods. If I didn't have them, I'd be interested in your set should you chose to sell it.


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## mrbreezeet1

does anyone know if the Lufkin No.1913 and 1912 micrometers read down to .0001?
There are often on e bay, I don't really need the accuracy, but I just like the mics better that way.


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## Jim1942

Need some help in repairing a set of 0-1" mic's.  I was able to pick them up cheap at a swap meet and thought I might have found a bargain.  Maybe not so lucky.  Might just have myself a small C-clamp.  The guy at the table said his young son just tried to take it apart, out of curiosity and they were unable to put it back together.  Thought I'd be able to take care of that job, but I find that I too am stumped.

i can't pull them any further apart and they won't screw back together.  When I shake them, it sounds like there might be a small washer or some other part rattling around in the handle.  Anyone know how to help?

Jim Dunn 
Harrington, Delaware


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## Tony Wells

Been a while since i had one of those apart, but seems to me there is a ring with a key on it that spins the "odometer". You have to line everything up to get the spindle back in there. I imagine Starrett would give you a breakdown on it.


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## Jim1942

Thanks Tony.

I'll see what I can find under Starrett.


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