digital calipers, xyz mill table

Atlas Knife Company

Atlas Knife Company

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Feb 16, 2010
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Please give me your recommendations for a pair of digital calipers accurate to .001 and a good xyz cross slide vise. My HF calipers are only good to .01 and the vise is horribly inaccurate requiring 3/4 turn when changing directions. I can find plenty of different ones, but I need to know which ones are worth it and which ones are junk.
 
zaph1 said:
Please give me your recommendations for a pair of digital calipers accurate to .001 and a good xyz cross slide vise. My HF calipers are only good to .01 and the vise is horribly inaccurate requiring 3/4 turn when changing directions. I can find plenty of different ones, but I need to know which ones are worth it and which ones are junk.
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If you are only reading to .01 on the caliper, are you sure that it is not in metric mm mode instead of inch mode?

.001 inches and
.01 mm

are fairly standard ranges for that sort of thing.

Which model caliper are you using?
 
Centech 6" digital
HF #93293
resolution .1mm or .01"
accuracy .2mm or .01"

So, it's less accurate than it is precise. Meaning I can't tell if this screw is 1.8mm or 2.0 because the margin of error is the same as the difference in readings.
 
zaph1 said:
Centech 6" digital
HF #93293
resolution .1mm or .01"
accuracy .2mm or .01"

So, it's less accurate than it is precise. Meaning I can't tell if this screw is 1.8mm or 2.0 because the margin of error is the same as the difference in readings.
Click to expand...

OK, Yea that one is crap if it only reads to .01"
Probably aimed at woodworkers
 
Erin, Thanks, I found those on eBay for a few $$$. I bought a couple, it wouldn't hurt to have a good one at home, also. Sure, they are shipping from HK, but they will get here before I can make it to HF again.

Now, I need to find a really nice precision mill table.
 
Because they are $10

Actually, 2 of them were gifts.

The only one I bought is an 8"

Batteries die quick, and they don't repeat very well...
 
Brian Fellhoelter Knives said:
Because they are $10

Actually, 2 of them were gifts.

The only one I bought is an 8"

Batteries die quick, and they don't repeat very well...
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Cool. :D

I haven't had any problems with repeatability UNLESS the batteries are low. If I am having issues getting repeat measurements, I throw in a new battery and everything is fixed.

I won't argue that these are in the same class as Mitutoyo, Starrett, etc... but for the price, they are handy to have around the house (and the office, and the shed, and the car ;)). Plus, I can use them for things that I wouldn't dream of with a more expensive set... (like scribing grind lines).
 
fowler is the best of the midrange stuff good price and great quality, the only complaint i have with fowler stuff is the wood boxes they come in, they kinda fall apart. the tools are great.
 
12345678910 said:
I like the manual dials myself too.
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Absolutely.
Digital calipers are nothing but a pain.
As well, you'll find yourself spending a great deal of time trying to get something to read EXACTLY!! what you want to see displayed on the reading instead of seeing it immediately on a dial.
Last digital caliper I had I smashed on my anvil with an 8# hammer.
 
Calipers are good for a fast reference. They can be inherently inaccurate. If you really want to be accurate you need a micrometer. Starrett, Mititoyo, Fowler, Brown and Sharpe are all good brands. Starrett is the industry standard. Even the inexpensive micrometers will give an accurate reading. Just food for thought.
 
To echo what Chuck said, Calipers are good for close measurements, they are not precision devices. Personally for things where a caliper is appropriate I have a Browne and Sharpe dial caliper that I like, I have some Chinese dial calipers and some harbor freight digital calipers that I use for layout stuff where fit and measurement are not critical, they are not accurate, do not delude yourself into thinking they are. For anything requiring precise measurements I have Starrett micrometers in 0-1, 1-2, 1.5-2.5, 2-3, 3-4,and 4-5, inches. The micrometers are traceable to NIST, Checking the calipers against the micrometers shows the Brown and Sharpe caliper to be somewhat repeatable, the HF digital and Chinese dial calipers not so much

-Page
 
At this point, I'm mostly using them to measure blank thickness and screw diameter, standoff length, etc. Still, my crappy .01" digital are more accurate than the tape measure I was using.

Any thought on XYZ vises?
 
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