reading a dial caliper

[Cougsfan]

The calipers that offer a display in fractions have always made me scratch my head. I have nothing against fractions, but I have a hard time quickly visualizing if 23/64th is larger or smaller than 3/8th of an inch.

 

[oldtimer 66]

At one time a long time ago, I ran a large G&L floor mill/ a HBM. It was a 7" bar machine with a quill. It also had a shaper attachment, 40 feet of column travel "x" or , I can't remember the vertical travel. The scales thru peep sights were all fractional. Beside all the hand tools, wrenches, scales, micrometers, tape measures you needed to run the machine, you also needed a steno pad and a #2 pencil with a good eraser. Easy eh!. I learned after 50 plus yrs in manufacturing you don't mix decimals and fractions. It's a "No No". Later.

 

[LittleBill21]

Hwwwat?!! Heresy, I can't even...I bet as a kid, your room was quite messy.

lol the equipment can't hold that tight.

 

[big bubba]

i remember back in my machinist days...reading a vernier scale on a mic or caliper. & probably accurate as a scale if the machinist's eye is accurate. i quickly converted to dig readout so long ago. love the old tools though

 

[Smokeydog]

Digital batteries are a pain particularly in cold weather. Got a solar power assisted digital caliper for my unheated shop 17 years ago. Still on original battery.

 

[alexpops]

Yup! +/- .003 accuracy

I can’t begin to tell you how many times over my career I had a customer ask me “tolerance?” “Can’t you just make it perfect?” My reply was always “sure I can, but each move of the decimal point to the left increases the cost by a factor of 10. How close do you want it?”

I've always preferred the C___ Hair scale for Tolerances. Blonde ... pretty much the holy grail, red ... close enough, brown or black ... keep working.

 

[turbo36]

I've always preferred the C___ Hair scale for Tolerances. Blonde ... pretty much the holy grail, red ... close enough, brown or black ... keep working.

Yeah, you know highly inappropriate but dammit that's the way we talked! I am a pretty prolific user of swearwords, I blame it all on working on the factory floor at GM,Ha Ha. Or maybe it was when I was hanging structural steel, or working on the farm or well maybe I just learned it on my own.

 

[2515R Dude]

The calipers that offer a display in fractions have always made me scratch my head. I have nothing against fractions, but I have a hard time quickly visualizing if 23/64th is larger or smaller than 3/8th of an inch.

It is why normal ppl converted to metrics long time ago.

 

[WranglerX]

Only time I convert decimal to fraction or millimeter, is when I trying to find a "close enough" drill bit (fractional)....

But there is this....

Convert for Windows

Convert is a free and easy to use unit conversion program that will convert many of the most popular units.

joshmadison.com

Must be something similar for Android or IPhone...

 

[nyone]

I find that it's faster to read and get an accurate measurement with a standard dial caliper. the reason is you really need your caliper to be total parallel to the piece your measuring and the best way to do this is to rock the caliper on the piece and read the dial while you do it. The biggest/smallest reading would be the most accurate measurement.
But for a piece of pipe like this it prob dosnt matter much.