In praise of the electronic caliper

I have found my electronic caliper one of the most useful tools in the workshop. Many woodworkers feel that its accuracy (to 1/100th of a millimetre) is overkill. Obviously, woodwork does not actually require such accuracy, but it does not come amiss, and it is a considerable improvement on the plus or minus half a millimetre that most of us can achieve with dodgy eyesight and a ruler.

Carbatec sells a 200 mm model for $75, which I think is excellent value for money.

I find the caliper invaluable for checking the thickness of boards, for fine-tuning tenons to their mortises, for setting the height of router bits and saw blades, and a multitude of other uses. It also provides instant conversion between inches and millimetres. Get one, and see the quality of your work improve enormously.

Couldn't agree more - I use mine all the time.

Don't have an electronic one, but a good quality analoge one. Once you get used to working to .05 mm there is a noticeable improvement in the quality & fit of joints.

oh yeah baby.

love that digital caliper.

Even for squint free measurement to .5mm great.


realy handy when you machine timber to mate with metal parts.

how thick is that plywood realy

Ive found 9mm ply wood to vary from 8.2mm to 9.4mm.
fast easy truth from the caliper.

that is a very wide tolerence when fitting it to aluminium extrusion or even to a rebate.

one of the best $100 i ever spent.

I also use a dial vernier gauge most of the time. Sometimes I don't because I get upset at the accuracy of the measurements that I get from it. IT is accurate, me or my tools are sometimes not so accurate.

Try measuring a piece of timber that has just come out of your thicknesser and you may well find a difference of .2 of a millimetre between one side and the other or one end and the other.

I don't think that the setup of the thicknesser could be improved, it is just a natural discrepancy because (I think) that the timber being drawn through the machine is not completely homogenous. as such different areas of the timber cut in different ways or compress when they should cut etc.

Can anybody comment on my thoughts on this please?

Hi
I agree on the thicknesser theory, some timber compresses when going through, or maybe it ducks out of the way of them angry blades.
Such is the joy of woodwork. :)
Cheers, Allan

Oh that is great, maybe I'm not quite as inept as I thought. :)

Even so, I will make a big effort to get epter.

Accuracy is relative.

if the joints are tight & it all look prety damn square don't worry about it.

if you are finding things don't fit as well as you would like then its time to chase some accuracy.

just for a reality check, grab a fitting & turning text and do some reading about "fits". & consider that is in steel.