New Calipers - Experience with these choices?

Zahnrad Kopf · Sep 3, 2015

I am looking to get a new set of calipers for myself.

Buying American is very important to me. I go to some lengths to make sure that I do, but I also realize that there are times when it simply is not feasible to do so. ( Televisions are one example )

With that said, my immediate choices are obviously Starret and Brown & Sharpe.

IF ( and that is an unlikely "if" ) I cannpt find a model that suits my needs and likes, I would consider a good German or Swiss one.

I'm considering 8"/9" models because I seem to find myself needing to measure things just a hair over 6" often enough to make me remember it.

I have a few sets of Mititoyo Absolute calipers ( given, never bought ) and absolutely love not having to zero them upon powering up, so that's a feature request right there.

Some other desires, in no particular order -

Coolant Proof. This is a must.

Stainless

Inch and Metric. I work in Metric as much as Inch these days and often both in the same day. I know it's a standard thing these days, but mention it just in case...

Don't care about data out. Don't use it, don't see needing it any time soon.

Decent battery life. Vague, but there it is. You know it when you see it. ( or don't see it as the case may be... )

.0127mm / .0005" resolution. Anything finer and I will be using a mic...

Price is always a concern, but I'm not going to whine about a $20 USD difference.

So what have you in your hands that fulfills all of these? What do you like about them? What do you hate about them? What would you do differently this time?

Thanks.

gkoenig · Sep 3, 2015

Careful with the Starrets.

They have a few lines of calipers. The good ones are OK, but not as good as the Mitts. The bad Starrett ones? Are a complete ripoff and made in Brazil and suck. Like, I was so disappointed in them, it kinda turned me off from anything Starrett makes that wasn't tooled up before 1970.

Honestly, at this point, if I want calipers, I buy Mitutoyo. My 100mm set is with me all day long.

metalmaster10 · Sep 3, 2015

Not sure how helpful I will be but will. Give you my .02
Most of the local manufacturing companies have gone 95% Mitutoyo.
I have purchased several Dial tools in the last few years. Starrett, Mitutoyo, SPI, Fowler. The Mitutoyo calipers are by far the nicest of the new dial calipers that I have purchased in recent years. I have B&S dials from 20 years ago that are very nice, but I was not impressed with the new Sterrett's, unfortunately.
I have used hundreds of digital Mitutoyo mics, cals, and indicators. They seem to be the best bang for the buck. Accurate, reliable, good battery life, priced with other good tools.
I have no reservations or fears of ordering Mitutoyo stuff, but I don't feel so confident about other stuff.
If I were getting a new 12" dial cal, it would be Mitutoyo or B&S...if digital, it would be mitutoyo. USA or not.
My .02
YMMV

metalmaster10 · Sep 3, 2015

gkoenig said:
Careful with the Starrets.

They have a few lines of calipers. The good ones are OK, but not as good as the Mitts. The bad Starrett ones? Are a complete ripoff and made in Brazil and suck. Like, I was so disappointed in them, it kinda turned me off from anything Starrett makes that wasn't tooled up before 1970.

Honestly, at this point, if I want calipers, I buy Mitutoyo. My 100mm set is with me all day long.

My new Starrett dials that I was not impressed with were made in USA.... the Mitutoyo's that I love were made in Brazil.

Eric M · Sep 3, 2015

I admire your desire to "buy American", but good luck finding something worthwhile. Since you are already familiar with the Mitutoyo product line, stay with them. IMO, they will give you the best value for the money. All of your "must-haves" are there. Starret's are okay, at best. They are not that great on battery life. (Personal experience here; I have their 0-6" digital calipers and 0-1" digital mics.)I'm not that familiar with B&S's current digital offerings.

redlee · Sep 3, 2015

We were just talking about this at work, Mitutoyos are the only ones we will buy now.
American made??? Ebay for some old ones that are good.

kenh · Sep 3, 2015

Mits for me.
The battery life approaches that of U-235. One fellow mentioned in a post that he never turns his off.

PeteM · Sep 3, 2015

Have to add to the chorus of buy Mitutoyo.

Who knows maybe B&S or Starrett will see a competitor with 80% market share and try a bit harder?

adamm · Sep 3, 2015

Since we seem to have given up on the Starretts, has anyone used the newer Mahr calipers? About 11 years ago my employer provided me with a 8" set that I found to be quite good. My current shop calipers are both Mitutoyo and I like them. My Absolute 8" is about 8 years old and might have died though. The display is blinking dashes and a new battery didn't help. I haven't spent any time trying to figure out what is wrong. Hopefully there is just a reset that I'm missing.

My interest in the Mahr is these special tipped calipers. I can think of a number of times a few of these would have been quite handy.

MarCal Special Calipers - Mahr Metrology

Philabuster · Sep 3, 2015

Zahnrad Kopf said:
Coolant Proof. This is a must.

Stainless

Inch and Metric. I work in Metric as much as Inch these days and often both in the same day. I know it's a standard thing these days, but mention it just in case...

Don't care about data out. Don't use it, don't see needing it any time soon.

Decent battery life. Vague, but there it is. You know it when you see it. ( or don't see it as the case may be... )

.0127mm / .0005" resolution. Anything finer and I will be using a mic...

Price is always a concern, but I'm not going to whine about a $20 USD difference.

So what have you in your hands that fulfills all of these? What do you like about them? What do you hate about them? What would you do differently this time?

Thanks.

My Mitutoyo 8" Absolute IP67 calipers are totally awesome. :cloud9:

The Starrett digital calipers we have seem to take forever to update the display. :ack2:

If you want some American made Starrett metric/inch IP67 calipers, don't care about SPC and never want to worry about battery life ever again, pretty hard to beat an old set of vernier calipers.

Pete F · Sep 3, 2015

kenh said:
Mits for me.
The battery life approaches that of U-235. One fellow mentioned in a post that he never turns his off.

Agree, I never turn mine off either. Well, I do when I think about it. Which is almost never! I get about 2 years life out of the battery. However I use the standard and not coolant proof models, but doubt there's a difference inside. I have some Tesa calipers as well, made in Switzerland. I prefer the Mitutoyo hands down to the supposedly "better" Tesa calipers.

I similarly admire trying to support local industry, but I wouldn't buy any Starrett measuring equipment these days. I personally feel the quality has gone downhill a lot, and they're simply trading on the brand name. My opinion and 2 cents for what that's worth. I feel Mitutoyo has maintained the quality through their entire line, while somehow still being realistically priced.

Miguels244 · Sep 3, 2015

Philabuster said:
If you want some American made Starrett metric/inch IP67 calipers, don't care about SPC and never want to worry about battery life ever again, pretty hard to beat an old set of vernier calipers.

Vernie-what?

MaxPrairie · Sep 3, 2015

Ya the dial on my mitt uses almost no battery. Haha. Mitutoyo is what I use exculcively. Just had a new guy start who thought he had a caliper. I bought him a new mitt caliper and told him to take his other one home. He can use my mics until he is consistantely machining tenths. My starretts havent moved in years.

gkoenig · Sep 3, 2015

adamm said:
My interest in the Mahr is these special tipped calipers. I can think of a number of times a few of these would have been quite handy.

MarCal Special Calipers - Mahr Metrology

The Mahr calipers I've seen are nice, but if you wanna go with the eurotrash (and I often do!), Tesa makes some super nice stuff. You will, of course, pay for it.

Pete F · Sep 3, 2015

gkoenig said:
The Mahr calipers I've seen are nice, but if you wanna go with the eurotrash (and I often do!), Tesa makes some super nice stuff. You will, of course, pay for it.

My Tesa calipers were no more expensive than the Mitutoyos. However, as stated above, I much prefer my Mitutoyo and wouldn't buy another set of Tesa calipers. It's not that they're bad, it's just that they're not as good, in pretty much all respects, to the Mitutoyos. From what I've seen, there's the Mitutoyos and then there's the rest, in decreasing order of quality.

Zahnrad Kopf · Sep 3, 2015

Dammit boys!

Why'd you have to all go and start making sense?

Seriously - I get that the Mitis may be the best bang for the buck. And no one ever accused me of having common sense. I look for, and buy, American made socks. That's no easy feat ( feet? ) nowadays. It's a big deal to me.

I happen to agree with you all. Like I wrote earlier - I actually have 3 sets of the Mitis around the shop. They are very nice calipers.

For what it's worth - I thought of Tesa. The B&S are made by Tesa. ( look at the pics ) I am likely wrong, but the Starrett calipers bear an uncanny resemblance to the Mahr calipers, too...

The Mitis have annoying habit of erroring out and showing E's on the display when they near moisture, much less wet.

I don't understand the Mahr website's reference to their REFERENCE system. Is that supposed to be like Miti's Absolute?

I've looked, but can't seem to find anything one way or the other about whether the Starret's/B&S/Tesas have something similar available. That one feature may be the determining factor, actually. I've grown accustomed to it... Really helpful when one's only had two cups of coffee.

And yes - all of the candidates for the American made ones are the upper quality levels, not their economy offerings. ( although, I don't understand that if the B&S ones are made by Tesa... ) :scratchchin:

Keep it coming. Are there any other brands of quality not brought into the scope yet?

The real Leigh · Sep 3, 2015

Another vote for Mitutoyo.

I have all the digital calipers from 4" to 18", and fine them to be excellent products.
They're all IP67 rugged, coolant-proof, etc.

The batteries last forever. I don't think I've ever replaced one. They're about 3 years old.

- Leigh

Pete F · Sep 3, 2015

Zahnrad Kopf said:
Seriously - I get that the Mitis may be the best bang for the buck.

It's not so much that they're the best bang for your buck, it's simply that they're the best for ANY number of bucks! However if you want to buy crap because it's an American company, obviously you're free to knock yourself out.

One thing I'd suggest to be very careful of is the whole assumption that just because it's an American company that it's actually made in the USA. Here in Australia we have very strict laws on being able to label something with "Made in Australia". In my experience (I used to spend a lot of time in the US for work), the same strict laws may not apply there. You and others possibly may know more about the actual technical requirements in that regard, but I remember seeing many instances of very minor work being done on largely completed products, yet getting the old Made in USA sticker slapped on it! That to me is even worse than buying something that is openly imported, as it's attempting to con the consumer.

Street · Sep 3, 2015

Well all i can say is i have had mitutoyo verniers all my life, not those fancy digital readout jobs.
When new they are good but never use them below 0.002" new or 0.020" worn ( thats well used junk status) they lasted reasonably for how much i used them each day.
I cannot see how digital will improve the accuracy of design, the design is limited due to wear that occurs so if your thinking of using it to 0.001" consistently i think your being optimistic.
You are better pulling out the Micrometer............
Mitutoyo make reasonable micrometers so go for those, the old Moore and wright have their place if they are not abused or worn out, sometimes you can pickup old micrometers that are good for use in the home shop at cheap prices compared to whats in fashion.
The japanese after the war where helped by US quality people to get there industry working again they took to it like ducks to water and improved it a great deal and still improving we now look to them for management titles on Quality manufacturing - go figure.
There approach to production is being proven to be better than here.
Until we learn the things that where taught years ago and the catchup material and implement it they have made their own market.

Sure have a look around see whats out there not harm in doing that but the reputation Mitutoyo has made will be harder and harder to break as time progresses. :popcorn:

allloutmx · Sep 3, 2015

The Etalon dial calipers look top notch....
I use to be all about the Starrett brand... Loved the idea of supporting the home boys as well. Then they served me a number of shit products, and lets face it they arent inexpensive either. 2" rod for my depth mics came bent from the factory. The 6" calipers they gave me new in the box at the national tool and die competition were .003" off. Brand fking new! The last one was the 210$ 12" calipers i bought 4-5 years back. Proudly laser engraved with the caption "made in china"... Since then i have bought a $30 pair of spi 6" dials that are great! And i just paid $340 for a new set of mity 12"

i really hate to rub their companies name in the mud. I know how hard some of the employees must work and I know it took a ton of effort for them to get where they got so i do mean this with all due respect, but in my opinion they have peaked unless they endure some sort of culture shift within their organization.

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