Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm tired of cheap calipers that last 6 months. Please suggest some that will really last. Thanks!

My calipers are the first tool I bought when I started doing this 17 years ago, but they're not digital. Regular ol' $20 calipers from the local hardware store.

Reading a lot about Mitutoyo.

That's what I have. They belonged to my daughters grandfather and still work pergectly...

+1 for Mitutoyu. I've had mine since 1990.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Over the past 45 years I've used verier, dial and digital the verniers are the most durable.
As long as I can see well enough to read them I'll stick with verniers.
If you have to have digital stick with name brand, Mitutoyu, Brown and Sharp or Starrett should all serve you well.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

As Dave said, as long as your eye sight is good, use the vernier.
No dead batteries.

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Well, nobody said bad things about Mitutoyo. About to pull the trigger on a $100 5 (or 500) series. Will wait until morning for other replies.

I have two pair of calipers in my desk at work, Mitutoyo digital and a set of Starrett dial calipers.
I almost always use the starrett dial calipers as the batteries in my Mitutoyo are more often than not dead.
I will say though that the digital feature of being able to jump between inches and mm is pretty handy.
Both sets are very nice BTW.
I also have a much cheaper set of dial calipers here at home and they pretty doggone well.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I use a mitutoyo vernier caliper. Built to last and recommended. But recently I bought a cheap digital one and was surprised it was reading same values as the mitutoyo, and it has been working for one year. Fingers crossed...

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I remove the battery on my digital unit from SM when not in use.
I also have a dial caliper, easy to read and no batteries. But as soon as I have the cash, a Mitutoyo 500 series solar unit is on the buy list.
The cheapies

We have good Starrett and B&S dial and digital calipers, but they live in sealed cases and are only used for calibration of cheaper measuring tools, critical measurements for setup operations, and tasks where they will not live in the dusty, gritty environment of a wood shop.

For everything else, we use $10-on-sale Harbor Freight/Pittsburgh brand 4" and 6" calipers that have a lifetime warranty. I've exchanged three of these in the last 18 months due to failure of pre-use check (wipe jaws/close/zero/full open/close/mid-range check of 1-2-3 block/close) or damage due to drop to concrete floor. The tool that stopped working had been in the shop for four years, which seems like a reasonable life span, given they live in an apron pocket or on the bench top. No receipt needed for return...just walk in and walk out with new one.

For the first 6 months here, I had to work with a dial caliper and the plate thickness gauge (marked in millimeters), which was painful, but a good experience in terms of being able to estimate measurements to the nearest 10th of an inch or millimeter...still not very good at it, but one of these days...

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I'm a big fan of dial calipers myself for reasons stated above - batteries are never dead. I have two calipers, digital and dial, both Mitutoyo that I inherited from my father. I'm not 100% sure but I think the dial is from the 70's and the digital from the 80's. I'm sure they've gotten better but the batteries in the digital always seem to be dead (the dang thing stays on for like 12 hours after last use) and whenever I compare the measurements from the dial to the digital, they're within .001" so I'm not going to complain. I've dropped the dial calipers once or possibly twice and it hasn't seemed to have messed with the measurements.

Buy a nice dial caliper and I think you'll be very happy.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

I also favor the dial calipers and just picked up a used Mitutoyo set of 4" calipers that I love. For digital sit is all about the batteries being dead. And I find the dial is just as easy to read as long as you aren't at some weird angle.

That's what we use at work and what I use at home. Not cheap but they are a pleasure to use. Brown and Sharpe is another good brand and, of course, Starrett.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

i don´t know about the dial ones but vernier callipers can be had on the cheap, my mitutoyo cost me 25 eur. it´s the 530-122 model, accuracy +/- 0.03 mm and reads up to 150 mm.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I have a cheap $10 digital caliper that turns itself off after one minute so the batteries last a couple of years. The one thing I really like about digital calipers is that you can zero it out at any point so you don't have to do any math when laying out stuff.

I have 3 at home- one of each type

I want to love my verniers the most, the simplicity is appealing and they are beautifully made. They are as accurate as the others (assuming careful reading) but just not as fast. New ones are expensive but used ones are very cheap, ebay is a great place to buy them. I would recommend looking for a Swiss version, either Etalon or Tesa. Etalon made one that reads in imperial fractions and thousandths. it is awesome. I've gotten a few for $20 or so. This one is more but what I am talking about:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Used-Etalon-7-C ... SwmtJXbvab

My favorites are Brown and Sharpe dial calipers, the 599 series. The weight is great, they repeat perfectly. Probably not too different than other top brands but, having used the others, I prefer the B&S. These are what I use primarily when metalworking.

http://longislandindicator.com/p103.html

Enco has had these in their super sale for the past months. If you wait for a 25% sale it is applied on top of the existing sale and a new set costs the same as a repair to an older one. A great deal.

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INLMPI?PMPA ... &PMCTLG=01

In the woodshop I use a cheap set of digitals! Like I said, I want to want to use the verniers, and do sometimes, but usually just reach for the no-name digitals. They aren't branded and I couldn't tell you who made them but they look identical to other Chinese calipers. I've bought MANY others for our Educational shop and they absolutely do differ but I couldn't tell you how, or why, when they look exactly the same. I've started paying a little extra for the iGaging ones at about $40 and they are fine and stand up to constant rough-ish use. If I wanted a long time digital and didn't mind spending more it would be Mitutoyo digimatic for sure. I think they have improved battery life by quite a bit over some of the older versions.

Hope that helps.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

I have tried several different brands and styles over the past 45 years. My preference is the same as Burtons, the Brown and Sharpe dial calipers. Not sure if it is still true or not but at one time B&S also manufactured the Tesa dial calipers. I prefer the B&S over the Mitutoyo digital calipers because they are more reliable and repeat better when compared to higher resolution measuring equipment. i.e. CMM, laser, gauge block transfer, high resolution micrometers. If you can still find Etalon they are an excellent brand also.

The good:
Less expensive
switchable from mm to inch
bright display (with new batteries)

The bad:
Burns through batteries
Dirt and dust a problem on scale
Inside tips are thinner
Repeatability for all measuring options are inconsistent. One should be able to measure ID, OD, step (the difference between the head of the sliding jaws) and depth,
using the bar extension at the opposite end of the jaws.

The bright display will fade as you batteries die out. I still keep 2-3 cards of 10 batteries in my fridge at all times. In all fairness I still have several digimatic 0-1 Micrometers, 3 digital calipers and, digimatic high resolution micrometer heads on my tool makers scope (AC), and digimatic indicators set up on drop stands (AC). I can go through batteries.
For everyday use I will grab my B&S calipers every time. They are just more reliable and there is less to go wrong with them.
I do replace my calipers, they aren't good forever.

Tim

I have had several Kobalts. And until recently, I could return them when they failed. And failed they did. But now, Lowe's doesn't carry them anymore. I didn't mind them failing as long as I could return for a new one. Guess they finally figured they had an Albatross on their shelves.

Love my Mity. But have several cheapies throughout the shop and will probably start buying the HF with lifetime warranty.

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Pat

Us too (KMG) -- We check them regularly using drill bits, actually have not had a failure. Ours are mostly from Harbor Freight and the batteries last a long time, auto shut off in about two minutes or so.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I use some stew mac branded generics that are more than 15 years old. The batt cover is taped on and the LCD is cracked but I still find them reliable to the nearest .001". Speed when zeroing them out or converting to metric is what I like about digitals.
Grinding the noches in them to read fret sizes easely I figured would cost me at least a 1/2 hour of time when I bought them.
I have no Idea what the quality is like now but other big box generics have come and gone in my shop. None have been as good as the old Stew Macs
I've long intended to replace them with some nice Mitutoyo's but I don't think it would change how I work so could never justify it.. I only need calipers to be fast not super accurate.


When I really want to know what's going on I use a Mitutoyo Vernier micrometer. I've had it for at least 25 years. It's a thing of beauty and a trusted truth teller.

Same here, I use the cheapies for non critical measurements, but grab the mitutoyo digital when I need precise measurements,
Mike

I have never noticed much difference in accuracy. At least for our purposes. The cheap ones invariably get scratchy on the travel. So far the Mity hasn't. Although I haven't had it that long.

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Pat