Official Luthiers Forum!

Shopping for an outside caliper for measuring top and back thickness. I have one that can measure around the edges, I want to be able to get closer to the middle of the top/back, so I'm thinking something like a 6 or 8 inch caliper. Any recommendations? What are you using?

If money is no issue, buy one of these. They are nice. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Measu ... liper.html

If money is an issue, buy a cheap dial indicator and attach it to a plywood frame. $12 at Grizzly. http://www.grizzly.com/products/Dial-In ... 001-/G3632

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I went the cheaper route Kent described and it has worked great.

I just bought the calipers from LMI for $170, but they work well.

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Home made with dial indicator for me. Not like you need extreme accuracy anyway, since every piece of wood is different. I mainly just use it to check for evenness, and to make sure I'm not way outside the typical thickness range.

I just got this one and I like it much better than the caliper which they sell for $133 that has the metal frame.

This was $28.00 - I highly recommend it ~! it does 8" - in fractions/inches, inches, and mm



http://www.amazon.com/Quint-iGaging-Digital-Outside-Calipers/dp/B002PU77Q8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1341455722&sr=8-3&keywords=outside+caliper

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I have one of these an it is pretty good but it does have limitations. The reach being the main one. I have used someone 12" violin style caliper and plan on getting one after seeing that it is much superior.

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Another day, another dollar.

Ive seen this one called Magic probe - but Im not sure of the cost - sure looks cool though!! Especially for luthiers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKtFxzFbOiI
Heres a demo of it in action
Cheers
Charlie

Ah, thanks. Was tempted by the Quint and the $100 Amazon gift card. I figure it's accurate enough to tell me whether I'm in the right time zone, and the rest is just instinct. Someday I may go big, but not right now.

That and a doublesided diamond stone should about kill it. These gift cards are great for stuff that would otherwise be hard to put lots of money into!

This works in a similar fashion as the Hacklinger Thickness Gauge. This is just and electronic version I believe. The top of the line one is about $400 and the lite version is $229. I have seen their ads in Fine Woodworking magazine.

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Another day, another dollar.

If you're getting into diamond stones, my recommendation for sharpening is an extra extra coarse and extra fine 8x3" DMT dia-sharp. They cut fast enough that the inbetween grits aren't really necessary, and the XXC is not so coarse that you shouldn't start with it anytime you're preparing a new blade, or regrinding a bevel or whatever.

The extra extra fine is nice to quickly smooth the back side of plane blades further, but it's more expensive than XF and still not fine enough for a final surface, so you might as well just get the XF and then switch to other abrasives. Lee Valley's 4 grits of diamond lapping film are the best I've found for fine polishing of the back side, and creation of the micro bevel on the bevel side.

For fret leveling, the coarse 2x6" is just about perfect.

Don't buy the double sided dia-sharps. They're not flat. Or at least mine aren't. They're fine for sharpening the bevel side of chisels and plane blades, but not for flattening the back side.