greenbuggy
Stainless
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2005
- Location
- Firestone, CO
I've been having some bad luck lately with calipers...
I'm a glorified Amateur with some tools, so I don't use this machining stuff day in and day out, but it really grinds my gears when I reach for a tool only to find it needs to be messed with in order to function correctly. I try to take care of my stuff, keep it clean, don't drop it (or drop things on it) especially the measuring stuff.
First I bought a used Starrett 120 6" caliper off ebay about a year ago, lately I've been noticing that it skips at non-regular intervals. Sometimes a full swing from 0-6"-0 will return me to 0, more often than not it'll be .05" or more negative or positive of zero. I can see the rack when I open the jaws fully and there don't appear to be any chips or gunk stuck in the rack, but I'm afraid to pull everything apart and lose some tiny pieces. Does anybody repair these things, or am I stuck with a caliper I can't trust?
Next, doing some metric work I decided that I should probably own a caliper that is A) bigger than the Starrett, B) can read out in metric and C) is Digital. Found a NIB Mitutoyo 8" MyCal Lite on ebay, paid $50 for it, have used it a few times and just for curiousity's sake, measured it against my standards for my recently acquired micrometers (also Mitutoyo). Discovered on the 1" and 2" standards that I'm .003" short of 1" and .005" short of 2", even after re-zeroing. I'm definitely not pressing hard enough on them to be bending the beam or jaws that much.
Is there any repair options for either these?
If not, what should I buy for a good general-use caliper that isn't going to crap out right away and will make reasonably honest, repeatable measurements? I thought Mitutoyo was a good brand and I hate to throw even more money at them to get something descent, but I don't want to have to remember which piece of measuring equipment is off by which amount every time I use it either...
I'm a glorified Amateur with some tools, so I don't use this machining stuff day in and day out, but it really grinds my gears when I reach for a tool only to find it needs to be messed with in order to function correctly. I try to take care of my stuff, keep it clean, don't drop it (or drop things on it) especially the measuring stuff.
First I bought a used Starrett 120 6" caliper off ebay about a year ago, lately I've been noticing that it skips at non-regular intervals. Sometimes a full swing from 0-6"-0 will return me to 0, more often than not it'll be .05" or more negative or positive of zero. I can see the rack when I open the jaws fully and there don't appear to be any chips or gunk stuck in the rack, but I'm afraid to pull everything apart and lose some tiny pieces. Does anybody repair these things, or am I stuck with a caliper I can't trust?
Next, doing some metric work I decided that I should probably own a caliper that is A) bigger than the Starrett, B) can read out in metric and C) is Digital. Found a NIB Mitutoyo 8" MyCal Lite on ebay, paid $50 for it, have used it a few times and just for curiousity's sake, measured it against my standards for my recently acquired micrometers (also Mitutoyo). Discovered on the 1" and 2" standards that I'm .003" short of 1" and .005" short of 2", even after re-zeroing. I'm definitely not pressing hard enough on them to be bending the beam or jaws that much.
Is there any repair options for either these?
If not, what should I buy for a good general-use caliper that isn't going to crap out right away and will make reasonably honest, repeatable measurements? I thought Mitutoyo was a good brand and I hate to throw even more money at them to get something descent, but I don't want to have to remember which piece of measuring equipment is off by which amount every time I use it either...
