How To Read a Micrometer

hey everybody welcome back to the shop and today I'm gonna be making a very simple how-to video on how to read a micrometer and this will be for Imperial measurements so this is a zero to one mic that I'm gonna be using for demonstration so I've had a lot of requests for making very simple basic videos like this to try to help people along we have a lot of viewers that are in school or nuit machining and metalworking and they look to these YouTube videos to try to help them along the way and learn how to how to use these tools so I want to show you how to read a micrometer and I have several other types of how-to videos I'd like to make as well pertaining to measuring tools and things like that all right so we're gonna use my my good trusty 0 to 1 stare at micrometer this was also my Grandad's and my dad so you're looking at a third-generation mic there that's been well used for many years well over 40 50 years probably alright so I want to point out also that this is a ratcheting micrometer so you have a ratcheting thimble there on the end of the mic there are several mics that you can buy that do not have the ratchet thimble on the end the purpose of the ratchet is so that whenever you go to take your measurement you use this and it applies the proper amount of torque to the mic giving you the proper reading so if you use it a mic without the rat sit there you have to be careful on how much pressure that you apply to the screw here whenever you're getting your your feel okay a lot of times whenever I'm using a mic even if it has a ratcheting thimble whenever I'm holding it I'll use the side of my finger to kind of pull it very gently to get the proper feel on the measurement and you'll kind of once you get some practice you'll you'll know what the proper feel is to use your finger to to move the barrel there alright so I will show you this so we've got this standard right here so this is a brown and sharp this was my Grandad's here and we'll use this to check the the mic that we're using there and make sure that we're that we're on this is another good thing to show you for the guys that that are learning this stuff so I'm gonna put this in there and I'm holding this mic in a clamp here to try to help with the video so this is it normally how I measure things but just trying to bring you some good video there so we're gonna put the gauge in between the anvils there and get it centered up and I'm just using a ratchet thimble and I can feel it that it's in there properly and we zoom in there I think we can see that our zero point right there is near perfectly lined up with this horizontal line going across there so that's your reference line on your micrometer in the center there that you're going to be referencing this barrel to right there so we have a good mic we're right on size so we'll go ahead and take that out of there and we'll go ahead and begin with what all these numbers and lines mean on a micrometer so to kind of to kind of start with the way that I always like to look at it when I was trying to you know learn this stuff too is no matter what size might be using you know you have a zero to zero measurement there at zero to two you know 999 thousandths so this is a distance of one inch right there and if you imagine these two points of reference this zero and zero there you have a thousand equal places in between there and that's what that's where you're getting your measurements so you'll notice you'll have a one on the on the top here you have a one two three and so forth so that's one hundredths so that's a hundred thousand two hundred three hundred all the way up until you get to the full inch there all right also on the top line let me see if we can get you in a little bit closer no that's it you also have a line in the middle there so that's fifty so it would be fifty thousand one hundred 5,200 and so forth there's 253 alrighty on the bottom of that line I know it's a little bit harder to see there but each one of those lines is going to represent 25 thousandths of an inch so starting with your 0 first line will be 25 thousandths the second line will be 50 third line will be 75 and then the fourth is going to be exactly one hundred thousandths all right so let's go ahead and we'll run the barrel in just a little bit here we'll bring it on in so that's a little bit easier to see what's going on so let's go to we're gonna go to a hundred I'm gonna line it up on a zero but what I want you to know now is all of these numbers on a barrel you see we start with zero and it counts you know one and as we go all the way around you're going to end up there's 24 and then there's 25 so each revolution of the barrel is twenty-five thousandths of an inch on the bottom the bottom there of the barrel you'll see each line is twenty-five thousand so each time you go around so right there we're at a hundred and twenty-five thousand seven-inch 126 127 so you add up the top line and the bottom line and in whatever division that you're on on the barrel here have lined up with the center horizontal line that you add that together for your total measurement so if we was to be measured that right there all right so that would be one hundred and thirty-four thousands right there alright I've got a couple of gauge pins right here actually we have a we have a standard that we'll use this as another Brown & Sharpe this is a two inch standard and we'll measure the diameter of this pin right here so we'll stick it in there and we'll go ahead and use our a ratchet and then make sure we're squared up nicely so let's see what we ended up on so start with two because you you know you've already passed the two all right you can look at the top line and see that we're at the 50 but if you count the bottom you know that you have two lines that you've passed so 25 and 50 so you have 200 plus 50 plus 9 because you see the line that the nine is lined up with that line right there so we are at 259 thousands measuring the diameter of this pin right here all right we got a couple more that we'll use for references and I'll pick these out because these are kind of standard sizes so 375,000 says the diameter of this gauge pin right here that's also the same as three eighths of an inch so we know we've hit three so it'd be three hundred thousands and then you've got three of the 25,000 students twenty-five fifty and then we ended up on our zero for our last revolution there so that's another twenty five so that's three hundred and seventy-five thousandths of an inch now you also have tents on this micrometer right here which I can't really show you I'm gonna have to reconfigure the the tents there so on the tents if you're if you're past a zero so it actually looks like we're past that zero I'm gonna say one to two tents past that you have to go up on the top of the mic to line up one of these numbers on the barrel to indicate how many tents past you are and we'll look at that as well so here's one more gauge pin that will measure for reference there this is a 437 thousandths gauge pin and you see it's got the plus on there so it is going to measure just slightly over 437 that's going to be in your tents range alright so this would be 7/16 standard inch sizing right there alright let's zoom in there and check out what it reads so again you already passed the four so go ahead and say four point four you already passed a twenty five thousand there on the bottom alright and then you've gone around and you're lined up on the twelfth so the way I read that is four twenty five plus the twelve thousands that's going to equal four hundred and thirty seven thousands once you add all those up alright I'm going to demonstrate the tenth reading on the on the top of the mic now we'll go ahead and put our 437 back in here and clamp it back in so we already know we have a four hundred and thirty seven thousand reading but but our zero is just slightly passed but if you'll notice on the top of the mic right there on the top of that barrel alright there we go you see you have a series of parallel lines starting with zero one two three four and goes all the way around a nine and if you'll look over here this number sixteen is perfectly in line with that number one line right there so this is this is one tenth the one after that would be two cents and you can see it's slightly off okay so I'm gonna call it sixteen as being the one that's lined up with the number one so we are at point four three seven one the one being the one tenth so that's how you split one thousandth of an inch is lining up whichever one of these lines zero one through nine is perfectly in line with one of these numbers on the rotating barrel that's what you add to your figure that you come up with one more quick note that I want to point out about a zero to 1 inch mic is that that's the that's the only OD mic that you can run the the barrel all the way in and touch both the ambles just like that and it's important to note that you should never leave them together like that especially see whenever you're storing them so if you're gonna put this mic up you know don't run it all the way in there until it's tight and leave it like that one trick that you can do is put a little piece of volatile paper in between there and run it up that way it keeps the ambles oiled and not jammed in in there together so always just leave it leave them apart just a little ways it doesn't matter how far just run them out a little bit whenever you go to put it back in your case or put it in your toolbox alright guys well I think that's going to conclude this this how-to video on how to read an inch micrometer and hopefully you guys liked it and I'm hoping that it helped a few you guys out there that's trying to you know get out there in the shop and learn how to do the machining and the metalworking and the precision measuring and things like that so if you have any other suggestions for some tools that you would like to see me demonstrate here on a how-to be sure to leave me a comment and hopefully you leave me a thumbs up and you enjoyed the video so until then we'll see you on the next one

Channel: Abom79

Views: 98,412

Rating: 4.9592223 out of 5

Keywords: abom79, machinist, machinist tools, micrometer, how to, how to read a micrometer, how to use a micrometer, starrett, starrett micrometer, measuring tools, precision tools, precision measuring tools, thousandths of an inch, imperial measurements, machine shop, job shop, standard, micrometer standard

Id: if6oOtOoVhw

Length: 12min 25sec (745 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2019