Dial Caliper: Fractional or Decimal

Re: Dial Caliper: Fractional or Decimal

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

>I had a metric caliper and it drove me nuts. Why? Because I am too set in my ways to covert to metric. Then I bought an imperial caliper and life was became sweeter.

Unless you natually think metrically then I suggest imperial.

Tommy

Re: Dial Caliper: Fractional or Decimal

Hank Knight from SC

>Phil, I have several decimal calipers I inherited from my dad. I never use them. I bought a fractional caliper from Highland Hardware several years ago and it lives on my bench. I use it every day. I never got in the habit of using decimal equivalents. I think if you use them and are comfortable with them, the decimal caliper would be fine. In fact, I imagine a fractional caliper would drive a machinist or an engineer nuts. But for common hacks like me, the fractional caliper is the only way to go.

Re: Dial Caliper: Fractional or Decimal

David Hay @ Denver

>I have a dial caliper that is in decimal units (imperial). And while it's very useful, there are lots of times when I'm looking up the closest fractional equivilent from the chart I made. So if I were buying again, I'd get one that has the combination dial like you're considering.

David

me too

Jack Guzman from Maine

>I just don't know decimal equivalents and I've been dealing with fractions for almost 50 years ,so when Woodcraft had a special on fractional calipers I got one. I have a decimal one but hardly ever use it.Don't even consider metric.---old dog-Jack

Clarification

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

>I should have clarified that while I now use an imperial caliper it is fractional. Anyway, the metric caliper pretty much collects dust these days. Fractional relates to all the other dimensions I work with. Much nicer.

Tommy

Re: Dial Caliper: Fractional or Decimal

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Like David, I made up a little table for converting fractions to decimals. I've got most of it memorized, (at least out to 16ths) so I seldom use it anymore. If you are mostly woodworking and live on the left side of the big pond (U.S and Canada, anyhow), the scale you show in your post will be the most useful. If you get into machining metals, just get another one, or a micrometer, in decimal fractions.

The way I figure it, in the forseeable future, woodworkers over here are about as likely to convert to metric as to Bobs. I have a few measuring devises with metric graduations, but I almost never use those scales. No sense cluttering up a tool you'r going to be using constantly. That's what a calculator's for. Just remember that an inch is 2.54 centimeters and a meter is 39.37 inches.

Re: Dial Caliper: Fractional or Decimal

Dan Donaldson

>Get all three ;-)

I use imperial, metric, and decimal interchangeably depending on what I am doing at the time. Each has a place.

woodworking and metric motorcycles

Bruce, a MN Galoot

>that'll keep you converting stuff. I have an old plastic vernier caliper with decimal inches on one side and metric on the other. Works for me. I convert fractions to decimals as needed.

Bruce

Opportunity knocks: Joel? Rob? Anyone?

David Barnett

>To heck with the dial. I've thought about this before, and I truly wish one of you (or anyone, for that matter) would manufacture a 4" digital converting calipers in inches (both fractional and thousandths), mm, and an optional goldsmith's model in fiber-filled poly that also converts to B&S gauge and gives circumference for diameter. I'd throw my dollars at you so fast they'd crack like whips. I'm so sick of digging through my machinist's chest for this or that gauge, converting and calculating in my head or on the back of abrasive papers or diamond papers that tear when my pen won't start. I've got gauges, calipers, micrometers out the wazzoo (not a pretty sight), dial, vernier, digital -- and it should be so easy to make one do it all. And while you're at it, give it a memory.

Re: Dial Caliper: Fractional or Decimal

Tom Ryan

>A big difference is that the usual decimal caliper goes around ten times for every inch, while the fractional one goes around once per inch. This means you can measure to 1/64 or maybe 1/128 on a fractional caliper (about .01), but to .001 on a decimal caliper.

The conclusion: for woodworking, most of the time the fractional caliper is fine, and much more convenient. But when you need more accuracy, the decimal one is the one to have. For example, the fit of a tenon in its mortice should be within a sheet of paper, or about .003. So you can measure fine with a decimal caliper, but not with a fractional one. (Or you can just stick the tenon in the mortice and not measure at all, which is most often the best way.) For machine setup and so on, the accuracy of the decimal caliper can be critical.

Re: Opportunity knocks: Joel? Rob? Anyone?

Joel

>With a digital caliper all you need is a few more buttons and it's a pretty simple programming thing (although for smaller sizes a micrometer is a lot more accurate - digital calipers are only good +/- .001 or so).

but that being said I should mention that only very few people need all the different scales you need (goldsmithing, gemology, woodworking, metalwork, etc). You might consider giving up some interests and becoming less of a rennasiance man.

Another thought might be to buy a few more tool boxes. Very simple keep all the tools for each craft in a seperate color coded toolbox and simple color code the handles of all the tools with nail polish to know which tool goes where. For example - Emerald Green for metalwork, Starburst Blue for gemology, mystic yellow for goldsmithing, and royal umber for woodworking, you get the idea - it takes some displine but the ease of locating tools is well worth it. Now you may say what about tools I use in all disiples? You could either has a Ebony colored code for all common tools that go in the common block OR simply buy duplicates for everything common - which would give you the chance of collecting many more tools which as we all know is the point of all this anyway.

So until we get you favoritse new caliper thought engineering - that's the best advice I can offer.

Interesting

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>how this thread rapidly wandered into metric vs. imperial (actuallly, I think, SAE - not too many of us colonials are measuring in peppercorns) measurements, when the original question was decimal vs. fractional.

My (non-dial) caliper is fractional. My micrometers are, surprise!, decimal. My cars are metric. I've kind of gotten used to moving around among the measurements, though I have to stop and calculate from time to time. I tell myself it keeps my mind active.

;-)

Dan Donaldson

>I guess my answer to the original question is whatever you are comfortable with. There are a few operations that I have done in the past that just do not lend themselves to fractional measurements. In those cases, I used metric because I needed a decimal system, and it is hard to find a decimal ruler that is 3 or 4 feet long, wheras, it is fairly easy to get a metric one in those kinds of lengths.

Re: Opportunity knocks: Joel? Rob? Anyone?

Joel

>"through" not "thought"

Re: more tools!

paul womack

>Personally, I think the best gauge depends on your purpose of the moment.

Leaving aside my own preferance for working in millimetres (don't start...) I routinely use 2 calipers.

One is a vernier; this is super easy to use, robust, and easy to operate. I IGNORE the vernier markings, and simply read off the 0 mark.

Any reasonable quality vernier has beautifully clear markings, and is a simple analog device. You can eyeball (in my case) .5 mm readings between the mm marks.

For more careful and accurate work, I switch to a dial caliper, reading in tenths of a mm. With a dial caliper you have to read twice; the whole units come off the bar, and the fractions come off the dial - it's slower and less intuitive, so I only use it when I need the accuracy.

BugBear (always in favour of more tools)

You're the very voice of reason, Joel...

David Barnett

>I used to be so much more organized. I guess I'll have to add another machinist's chest (or two, heh). I tried boxes but that became a juggling act. As for color coding (I don't need Braille just yet), you're dead on (and I like your choices, btw). The time has come for it, especially following my first brush with partial blindness. I use more help than before, and while I know where everything goes (well, sort of), it'd make things far smoother for others if I re-organized and codified.

You might be surprised, though, how many goldsmiths embrace multiple disciplines and would grab up a run of digital non-marring 'jack'-calipers. Those of us so particular as to alloy our own golds must also roll our own sheet and draw our own wire.

And yeah, I'm trying to cut back on things non-metallic, which means wood. I intuitively was heading in that direction since moving to Florida and was threatening to release a couple dozen moulders back into the stream. I pretty much only undertake woodworking on my own behalf, to support my other 'proclivities'. If I need another bench or fixture, no problem. And while I'd intended to dump those moulders, I'm now making display fixtures for a friend's first exhibition, a line of antiquities-inspired jewelry, and damned if those profiles aren't just the thing for plinths, pedestals, mantels and so on.

Of course, redundancy is attractive to both tool dealers and anyone with a serious tool jones, especially us mercurial mixed media mavens. Like I need another push, heh. Yeah, thanks for that one, Joel.

Re: Interesting

Todd Stock

>It would be nice if there were one common unit measurement system and one metric system, but it ain't so. There are about a dozen varieties of measurement systems derived from common units, to include Imperial, EES, SAE, etc. Differences in base units, some silliness with mass and weight (same as metric...a pain in the kilo) and differences in volume and weight units allow a lot more latitude in conversion errors than desirable. I have not been responsible for whacking a space vehicle into a planet, but there's always tomorrow.

Same thing with metric systems - combinations of base units define more-or-less cohesive systems, but with weight/mass confusion and other oddities, there is still plenty of room for error.

I sort of like Bobs... admit to being silly and glory in it, versus maintaining some misplaced notion that your XYZ system is superior to my ABC units.

Re: Dial Caliper: Fractional or Decimal *LINK*

Rob Lee

>Phil -

Don't laugh.... but these are my most used calipers.

Light, non-marring, and as accurate as you'll need for most shop work. I've been using them for years.

I actually tear out the wire depth stop (it's a pain in butt).

They're inch/metric (inch to 1/128), and graduated to 1/16". Where they really excel is functioning as metric-inch converters too (they have dual verniers).

You can put em in your pocket, drop 'em, leave 'em in the rain ... you name it.

Best of all - $1.25 each. 6 is a good number to leave 'em spread all over the shop...

Cheers -

Rob


Caliper...

Re: Dial Caliper: Fractional or Decimal

David Thiel

>Folks,

You're actually arguing an unnecessary point. We're in the process of writing a review of dial calipers for the Spring Woodworking Magazine and happily all of the fractional dial calipers on the market also read in decimals. No need to decide, you can use both. And digitals are just around the corner. Two manufacturers will have digital calipers that read in fractional/decimal and metric. While not machinist's tools, all of these calipers are accurate and pretty affordable ($30 - $60). Isn't it nice when our tool makers anticipate our needs?

Isn't it time....

HC Sakman

>...to come up with Fractional Imperial AND Metric in dial form like the 88N72.10?

Thanks Rob.

Chico...

Re: Isn't it time....

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>The problem is you'd need two dials, or more precisely, two hands on a dial with two scales. The centimeter hand would have to go around 2.54 times faster than the inches hand.

Another problem with all of these, vernier, digital and dial, is that they are built for right handers only. When I go to measure something, the scale is always facing down, until I set down the thing I'm trying to measure, swap the caliper to the right hand, turn it over and pick up the object I want to measure in my left hand. For accurate measurements, you need to hold the measuring devise in the hand with the better fine motor control.

How about a two-faced reversible dial? That way BugBear and I could just flip the dial over and put the metric face on the left side, where he could read it and I wouldn't have to :^)

Don't believe Rob. His rationale for multiple calipers just doesn't work. I've tried it with reading glasses and tape measures. These things migrate in flocks. It only takes about a week for all of them to disappear. Then, I have to search all over the shop, the house, the car, the firewood pile, the bottom of the frog pond, etc., until I find them all hiding in one pile somewhere, laughing at me. It's always some obscure place different from where they congregated the last time. I have found I need one tethered pair of glasses, and one tethered tape measure.

Purely personal choice

Ron in Kokomo

>Whatever "feels" right to you. I have never been able to work with the metric or decimal ones comfortably. Give me a fractional one any time. Nothing rational about it.. it is just what I was raised with.

I remember a very silly conversation over on "the porch" a few years ago where someone had sniffed a little too much WD 40 and announced that the metric system was " more accurate" that what we are used to on this side of the pond. Patent silliness, of course. The accuracy rests in the one who is doing the measuring and not the scale on the tape or caliper.

Hope to get into the shop this weekend

Re: Purely personal choice

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>There are some rational reasons for my prefering binary fractions over decimal. Maybe part of it has to do with with my training in computer science. Another advantage: In binary, you can count to 31 on only one hand (4 is rude, and 8 is a little difficult), while those decimal guys need both hands just to count to ten. Fractional rulers are a lot easier to read, too, because looking at the tick lengths is a lot quicker than counting ticks from .0 or .5.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

Re: Purely personal choice

Dean J in MN

>

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

That is why I use hex in my shop. :) I had extra letters to use up.

-Dean