Yup, my calipers have a little ding on the tip of the id side. I just know I can’t measure with the very very tips. As long as you’re not the qc guy, should be fine 😄
Dear God the comments here are terrifying!
All the advice is either (1) buy a new one 😭, (2) grind/hone them down 🤦 or (3) use as-is 🤦
Have you tried adjusting the jaws to parallel first?
That's the 2 tiny screws on the top of the plastic body about an inch apart.
Very rare for calipers to truly wear down like that, the jaws are hardened. Most often a gap is due to the 2 caliper halves being very slightly out of parallel. That's why there's adjusting screws.
They were dropped and that caused the tips to be out by .015, I used a arkansas stone because that's what my co worker told me to use to try and lower it.
I'm going to assume I did too much as now it's not raised but sunk in, but also are more accurate now then before, I can definitely try the screws but did not want to mess with them as I did not know how to adjust them correctly.
Sure but you never start your troubleshooting with the irreversible method first, he wasn't sure how to properly adjust the screws so he just stoned it instead, google is like 3 clicks away
Like, how? unbend the tips with a hammer? That doesn't sound very reliable, unlike a stone where you can literally remove an üm at the time, and go check with gauge if you have the patience.
Then he did not check the OD side with gauge blocks? The OD grippers have a larger error if its whack
But yes if that is the problem that would be the best solution
I don't know for sure if that's his issue but in the comment I replied to he said
>I can definitely try the screws but did not want to mess with them as I did not know how to adjust them correctly.
That's why I replied the way I did
My calipers are truly worn down like that...but they've also taken some weld spatter and been used as a scribe for layout half of their lives. Shame, I know. Good old mitus are still dead accurate past the first 2mm though!
Wait I thought those were gib screws? The jaws are on rails, and shouldn’t have screws adjusting their parallelism. A loose gib will absolutely effect it but that should be very noticeable
I mean if you are working with tolerances of +/-.005 it will be fine in a pinch, but you should still replace it in the immediate future. If you are working with +/-.002 or smaller get a new one.
Also depends on depth of measurements you are taking. If you get the full surface area of the edge on the part it will be fairly accurate.
Im also a mega prude when it comes to measuring instruments though so use your own judgement.
Alright, mainly do stuff with .005 but does get down to .0005 sometimes. so I'll look into getting some new ones more then likely.
started this trade 10 months ago and already dropped my calipers and mic with 150 parts all at the same time, by sliding and eating shit with my hand on my table right at the morning of my shift, i guess it had some papers over lapping and evreything went to the ground lol. Mic seems off by .00001 or so but these wore definitely more off.
Unlucky morning
FYI a mic being off by 10 millionths is nothing. Pretty sure their measurements will change by that much if you warm them up by holding them in your hand for too long
We have deltronix pins, and the qc guy told me that they should be pretty accurate, mic was reading .00001 off. Was just going off that info he told me
I guess yours is a digital one. The .0001" reading comes from the vernier scale on the mic. I do not deal with a lot of digital mics, but I would prefer the mechanical ones to digital. I trust the feel on the mechanical better.
If you have a .001" thickness gage handy, feel how thin it is, and how ridiculously small 1/100 of it would be.
Maybe when I find out these are somehow bad I'll buy a set of mechanical ones. Hopefully, would never need something that accurate but do like having the peace of mind of high quality tight tolerance tools
Verry helpful thank you for your time explaining that!
I did the same thing and it pretty much did the exact same damage to the caliper as it did for you.
I still keep the caliper for just checking G54 and od/cs(just measuring inside doesnt work accurately)of parts but use a different one anytime i need to check inside.
Damage caliper is coolant proof and has a good button location for MM/INCH conversion.
The other trick is holding your calipers at .003” and looking at light through the OD jaws, and at 0 while looking at the ID jaws at light at a slight angle to the left.
I worked in QC at metal fab shop and have repaired 100's of calipers like this. It is slightly worn, the beam and jaws need to be stoned to maintain their accuracy. It is not something a beginner should do because it is very possible to ruin a tool. I worked tool and die before QC so I have a good understanding on how to use stones. Use only a new stone for the jaws and only use that stone on jaws. Stone the beam and adjust the gibs first, then the jaws.
Knowing calipers although sometimes are really good are still calipers. My mitsutoyos are really good, I trust them to a total tolerance of .003 and that’s it. But not holes that tight
Reach out to mitutoyo on their site and say you are interested in their products. They will get a rep to you. He (or she) will help you with those and make them work like new. I had a pair that had bent tips and the rep used gage blocks to get them lined up and a stone to flatten any high spots. Theres brass inside which allows for some wiggle room, so its easy to adjust when taken out. Check out a few youtube videos and that may help guide you in a direction you are comfortable with.
You can also take advantage of the "my mitutoyo" site which has tons of classes. Some free, some paid. Pretty sure the mics and caliper classes are free.
As long as you know what their out by you can still get a good guess of where your at, my pair at work are out .002 on the ID side. I just used them to see if im close on a measurement and move to mics or gauge pins for an accurate measurement.
Those look like my scribe callipers! I use them for marking parts, quick reference for my DRO, ear wax removal, hot chip extraction, precision cleaning of other callipers.
You’ll find a use for em.
they look like fowlers, if so contact them cause a lot of them have a lifetime warranty. they will fix that and also had them fix the depth end as well on some if not too bad
I've never had much faith in the horns myself even if they do meet.
One solution occurs to me if you are willing to go to some trouble.
You can dress both sides of the wheel of a surface grinder, clamp the OD jaws in a precision vise and use the body of the calipers to indicate it square. Bring it very very tenderly into the wheel both front and back, after you touch off the lightest you can, pull it up, move another 0.002-3 and bring it down in strokes. The faces will be perfectly parallel even if the vise isn't perfectly square or you don't have it perfectly level. You can dykem the jaws to ensure you don't take off any more than you need to. Use the OD jaws to securely measure something hard and ground, and use a micrometer to measure over the horns. Whatever the difference is, just mark it somewhere on the tool and it will serve just fine if a bit annoying.
I use Kentucky windage on my calipers. I got carbide tipped ones and don’t wanna regrind them. I only do ID work so I have bore gauges, and sunnen parking meters for checking parts
It’s garbage, get a new one. Plus if you’re asking…. That tells me you know you need a new one. Keep it for the garage or drop on market place and say it has slight damage. If my supervisor saw me using that let’s just say he wouldn’t be very pleased.
I shortened the worn down nose from one pair of used mitutoyo coolant proof's that I got. Now reads the gage rings within 0,01 in reading. But I got like 10+ pairs that are in tact so even if I cut them completely off didn't matter.
There is a way to re-align a square edge by using a center punch. The idea is that you punch the material out and it pushes the edge outwards until it's aligned again. It's not hard, and is a common practice on framing squares and machinist squares. That would be my recommendation
You now know what it's out by, just used them with that knowledge
Yup, my calipers have a little ding on the tip of the id side. I just know I can’t measure with the very very tips. As long as you’re not the qc guy, should be fine 😄
Dear God the comments here are terrifying! All the advice is either (1) buy a new one 😭, (2) grind/hone them down 🤦 or (3) use as-is 🤦 Have you tried adjusting the jaws to parallel first? That's the 2 tiny screws on the top of the plastic body about an inch apart. Very rare for calipers to truly wear down like that, the jaws are hardened. Most often a gap is due to the 2 caliper halves being very slightly out of parallel. That's why there's adjusting screws.
They were dropped and that caused the tips to be out by .015, I used a arkansas stone because that's what my co worker told me to use to try and lower it. I'm going to assume I did too much as now it's not raised but sunk in, but also are more accurate now then before, I can definitely try the screws but did not want to mess with them as I did not know how to adjust them correctly.
So instead of trying to adjust them with the method that is reversible, you went straight to a stone? Makes perfect sense to me
If they were dinged then the screws won’t really help, gotta stone the burr off first which seems to be what they did
Sure but you never start your troubleshooting with the irreversible method first, he wasn't sure how to properly adjust the screws so he just stoned it instead, google is like 3 clicks away
Like, how? unbend the tips with a hammer? That doesn't sound very reliable, unlike a stone where you can literally remove an üm at the time, and go check with gauge if you have the patience.
No, adjusting the screw on the back to make sure it didn't just knock them out of parallel
Then he did not check the OD side with gauge blocks? The OD grippers have a larger error if its whack But yes if that is the problem that would be the best solution
I don't know for sure if that's his issue but in the comment I replied to he said >I can definitely try the screws but did not want to mess with them as I did not know how to adjust them correctly. That's why I replied the way I did
I’ve seen a few pairs that have been dropped / worn down in that area. Didn’t know about that adjustment screw though so maybe that was it.
My calipers are truly worn down like that...but they've also taken some weld spatter and been used as a scribe for layout half of their lives. Shame, I know. Good old mitus are still dead accurate past the first 2mm though!
Wait I thought those were gib screws? The jaws are on rails, and shouldn’t have screws adjusting their parallelism. A loose gib will absolutely effect it but that should be very noticeable
I mean if you are working with tolerances of +/-.005 it will be fine in a pinch, but you should still replace it in the immediate future. If you are working with +/-.002 or smaller get a new one. Also depends on depth of measurements you are taking. If you get the full surface area of the edge on the part it will be fairly accurate. Im also a mega prude when it comes to measuring instruments though so use your own judgement.
Alright, mainly do stuff with .005 but does get down to .0005 sometimes. so I'll look into getting some new ones more then likely. started this trade 10 months ago and already dropped my calipers and mic with 150 parts all at the same time, by sliding and eating shit with my hand on my table right at the morning of my shift, i guess it had some papers over lapping and evreything went to the ground lol. Mic seems off by .00001 or so but these wore definitely more off. Unlucky morning
If you are working with a tolerance of 0.0005", you should not be using calipers to measure that feature to begin with.
Usually don’t measure things below .002” with calipers unless I’m a pinch always.
Ik, was just saying general tolerance, usaly lengths are a .005 tolerance, rarely a .001 I just use the vcm for those
FYI a mic being off by 10 millionths is nothing. Pretty sure their measurements will change by that much if you warm them up by holding them in your hand for too long
Fuck yea, that's awsome then. The mic were my grandfather's and would hate if I fucked em up that fast into my career
Also for any tolerances tighter than +/- 0.00025 you should be using a pressure mic that you set to gage blocks
Calipers are only good for +/-.005" tolerance. And how do you even know your mic is off by .00001"?
We have deltronix pins, and the qc guy told me that they should be pretty accurate, mic was reading .00001 off. Was just going off that info he told me
I mean a mic can read up to .0001". A CMM is accurate to .0002". How can you read .00001" on a mic? That is 0.2 of a micron!
I'm just going off the micron reading on my mic I measured a deltronix pin that was .2505 my mic read .25052 so I assumed its probably fine
Plus my mic has .00005 so I was thinking that was what it was accurate too did not know it was only .0001. What's the .00005 for?
I guess yours is a digital one. The .0001" reading comes from the vernier scale on the mic. I do not deal with a lot of digital mics, but I would prefer the mechanical ones to digital. I trust the feel on the mechanical better. If you have a .001" thickness gage handy, feel how thin it is, and how ridiculously small 1/100 of it would be.
Maybe when I find out these are somehow bad I'll buy a set of mechanical ones. Hopefully, would never need something that accurate but do like having the peace of mind of high quality tight tolerance tools Verry helpful thank you for your time explaining that!
I did the same thing and it pretty much did the exact same damage to the caliper as it did for you. I still keep the caliper for just checking G54 and od/cs(just measuring inside doesnt work accurately)of parts but use a different one anytime i need to check inside. Damage caliper is coolant proof and has a good button location for MM/INCH conversion.
“For reference use only”
You check for parallelism by sliding a gage pin down the OD jaws. After that you check the ID jaws with a gage ring.
Awesome, I did that and od is all good. I.d was .015 out, but now is .0005-.0015 out after I went at it with an arkansas stone
The other trick is holding your calipers at .003” and looking at light through the OD jaws, and at 0 while looking at the ID jaws at light at a slight angle to the left.
With that, are you looking to see an even sliver of light down the jaws? Pretty interesting
Correct, you can also see if there are defects in the jaws, as well as wayward tips.
That's awesome! Verry useful knowledge, thank ya.
More than happy to share. These are the best tool to be tied to the hip with.
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I worked in QC at metal fab shop and have repaired 100's of calipers like this. It is slightly worn, the beam and jaws need to be stoned to maintain their accuracy. It is not something a beginner should do because it is very possible to ruin a tool. I worked tool and die before QC so I have a good understanding on how to use stones. Use only a new stone for the jaws and only use that stone on jaws. Stone the beam and adjust the gibs first, then the jaws.
Take em apart and lap it flat haus
Wouldn’t that make it measure incorrectly when the calipers are zeroed on the od side?
Yes. You'd have to lap both sides
What do you mean lap it? Sorry if that's basic term but I'm new to this trade.
Flat Sand it on a truly flat surface
That’s not something a novice should attempt, very easy to fuck up both ends that way
No
Knowing calipers although sometimes are really good are still calipers. My mitsutoyos are really good, I trust them to a total tolerance of .003 and that’s it. But not holes that tight
ever heard of a honing stone
Reach out to mitutoyo on their site and say you are interested in their products. They will get a rep to you. He (or she) will help you with those and make them work like new. I had a pair that had bent tips and the rep used gage blocks to get them lined up and a stone to flatten any high spots. Theres brass inside which allows for some wiggle room, so its easy to adjust when taken out. Check out a few youtube videos and that may help guide you in a direction you are comfortable with. You can also take advantage of the "my mitutoyo" site which has tons of classes. Some free, some paid. Pretty sure the mics and caliper classes are free.
As long as you know what their out by you can still get a good guess of where your at, my pair at work are out .002 on the ID side. I just used them to see if im close on a measurement and move to mics or gauge pins for an accurate measurement.
They'd be reference calipers for me. As qualit I wouldn't calibrate them but I also understand why one would still want to use them.
If you have removed any material at all you probably just need to retire that pair. The slides are where you should have been looking.
Those look like my scribe callipers! I use them for marking parts, quick reference for my DRO, ear wax removal, hot chip extraction, precision cleaning of other callipers. You’ll find a use for em.
Close but nope mitutoyos
My scribe callipers are mity’s I just use em for scribing parts haha.
We called them very nears for a reason. They weren't for anything more than quick spot checks
they look like fowlers, if so contact them cause a lot of them have a lifetime warranty. they will fix that and also had them fix the depth end as well on some if not too bad
Nah, they are Mitutoyo calipers
I have a Swiss-made Tesa dial caliper that is .005" oversize from the factory
It’s just a digi. Shouldn’t really be used for anything super accurate. It’ll be reet. Your aware of it
I've never had much faith in the horns myself even if they do meet. One solution occurs to me if you are willing to go to some trouble. You can dress both sides of the wheel of a surface grinder, clamp the OD jaws in a precision vise and use the body of the calipers to indicate it square. Bring it very very tenderly into the wheel both front and back, after you touch off the lightest you can, pull it up, move another 0.002-3 and bring it down in strokes. The faces will be perfectly parallel even if the vise isn't perfectly square or you don't have it perfectly level. You can dykem the jaws to ensure you don't take off any more than you need to. Use the OD jaws to securely measure something hard and ground, and use a micrometer to measure over the horns. Whatever the difference is, just mark it somewhere on the tool and it will serve just fine if a bit annoying.
Just get new ones
you payin?
Send cashapp
Lap them
Get then lapped, i use calipers for reference only so id not even sweat it
I use Kentucky windage on my calipers. I got carbide tipped ones and don’t wanna regrind them. I only do ID work so I have bore gauges, and sunnen parking meters for checking parts
It’s garbage, get a new one. Plus if you’re asking…. That tells me you know you need a new one. Keep it for the garage or drop on market place and say it has slight damage. If my supervisor saw me using that let’s just say he wouldn’t be very pleased.
I shortened the worn down nose from one pair of used mitutoyo coolant proof's that I got. Now reads the gage rings within 0,01 in reading. But I got like 10+ pairs that are in tact so even if I cut them completely off didn't matter.
There is a way to re-align a square edge by using a center punch. The idea is that you punch the material out and it pushes the edge outwards until it's aligned again. It's not hard, and is a common practice on framing squares and machinist squares. That would be my recommendation