Shop Talk 11: Vernier Calipers & How To Read Them

welcome back to another episode of shop Talk my name is Adam so last week I did an episode talking about telescope gauges and it got a lot of good reviews I got a lot of good comments about it and it was just overall a nice video and it's great hearing from everybody I've got a lot of good comments saying that people went out to the shop and they applied the little techniques that I showed that I use and they're getting better better results out of it so that's awesome so this week let's keep that momentum going we've had more requests for some other measuring tools in the shop so I'd like to try to go over a few of those this week we got something special for you I have never showed this tool on video before so we're going to see that for the first time we'll start with this one that's my starett veneer calipers these are the these are considered 12-inch calipers but they actually go past it you know you've got about a 14 inch reading on these that's the 12 inch and we got the 36 inch veneers these are some original calipers to our shop my dad even got you know he wrote booth machine shop they're on the case they're still in beautiful shape and we have used them quite a bit over the years the really nice set still got the original paperwork down in there the certificates of accuracy got the little booklet neat stuff so yeah these have been put up in my list over there and I really don't get to use them much anymore I haven't used them for anything since I've been down here in this shop but they do come in handy every now and then when you've got certain measurements that you need to read it doesn't have to necessarily be a round surface it can be something kind of long that you're measuring it could be shoulder links on a gearbox shaft that your machine it could be keyways there's there's all kind of things that this come comes into play with but what we're going to focus on is how to read a vernier caliper that's what I've had a lot of requests for apparently there's a lot of guys that haven't been shown or taught how to read a vernier caliper and I'm going to try my best to explain how to read a vernier caliper there's probably many ways to try to explain this and I'm going to try to say it in a way that makes sense to me so we'll get them over here on the bench and we'll go we'll get a little better look we'll go ahead and and we're going to check these with some gauge blocks now the one thing about the 36-inch they're definitely they definitely have some weight to it there's there's nothing light about these so these are a little bit harder to use but what I'm planning on doing is we're going to use those on this nice thrust bearing race right here and we'll get a couple of measurements mainly what I'm wanting to show you is how I get the feel for measuring the outside and inside diameters with a vernier caliper this one we may not be able to get the inside because of that big bevel right there but we'll check it out and see all right we'll go over to the bench and we'll start getting a little closer look at these what I got here is a four inch gauge block and then I picked out something that's a little bit in between a size that's a hundred and twelve thousands so what we should have as a measurement four inches point one one two we'll give it a little check with our digital's here just to kind of see where we're at with all right so the digital's four point one eleven and a half all right and what I'd like to use is this measurement here with the with the 12 inch veneers and then try to get in there a little little closer and show you what's going on with our measurements and how to read that all right I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and try to get these sets and what I'm doing is I'm just I'm actually just this isn't the way you normally would measure with these but what I want to do is show you what's going on here I want to get these set and we're going to go ahead and lock it this is your this is your lock once you get your measurement you want to Snug that alright so we should have our measurement right there if I squared it up properly and we're going to take a closer look at that all right we'll give this a try so with our with our 12 inch calipers here we just we just set this for our 4.1 12 with our gauge block and I locked it so here's how we're going to read this and of course this is inches I'm I'm sorry metric guys this is this is inch stuff here every line on a venire caliper in this case this is 50 thousands every individual line is 50 thousandths you have to understand too that you have the inside of the jaws and then you have the outside of the jaws here too so you have an outside measurement and then you use the outside of your jaws to read the inside of something an ID inside diameter this bottom row right here is what you're going to use for when you're reading your outside diameter it says it right there outside and in the top row is going to be your inside diameter so whenever you're measuring right here on the outside of the two jaws you're going to be reading the top line and it's very easy to forget which one you're wanting to look at and get the wrong measurement and you'll be off and I believe it's forget what it is now 200 thousands I think or 250 I don't I don't remember now we'll check that in a little bit but anyway so we've got it set to our gauge block at four point one one two so we're reading the outside so it's going to be the bottom always start at your zero here and count this way and then notice your zero here so we know we're already at one two three four inches right we're past the four so that's four inches we're also passed the first two lines so the first line would be 50 thousandths the second line where the one is that's a hundred thousands so we already know our measurement four inches one hundred thousandths now we've got to figure out what the remaining of our measurement is which is going to be read on the bottom line right here because we're split the difference between the one and the next line so we're somewhere in that 50 thousands range which is read on the bottom so what you do is that you you look along these bottom lines and you have to find which line is in line with one of the lines above it here on the main scale only one of these lines are going to be in line with each other like parallel like that in this case it should be 12 you start at zero you count down that's five thousandths ten-thousandths 11 12 so two lines past 10 is 12 and that should be in line let me get in here and look at it so it's in line with the seven the the line seven and this line right here are in line so there's your count right there four inches 100 twelve thousands oranges 112 for your outside measurement what I like to do here is try to demonstrate a good way to get an outside measurement whenever you're using your veneer calipers and get a nice accurate reading you know whenever I was talking last week about the telescope gauges and it's important to get the right feel well it's the same way with a vernier caliper you've got to get the right feel and get that touch so that you get an accurate reading if you get that down these things are very accurate there'd be just as accurate as an inside micrometer or an outside micrometer so now we're going to talk about this guy right here whenever you want to make your fine adjustments you want to lock this one right here make sure this one's unlocked and what this screw and nut is doing is going to move it see how I'm moving it forward there now I'm pulling it back and that's what you want to use to get your fine adjust on these on these veneer calipers so we'll kind of get it it's best to kind of leave it right near the middle of the screw and so we'll just do a quick measurement with that just to see our range all right four and a half four inches and it looks like it's just about lined up on the five so a nominal size this can be four and a half now let's go ahead and get an accurate measurement on this so we're going to what I'm going to do is just kind of I'm gonna go ahead and lock this and we're going to back it off and what what you're looking at is this zero right here you got to get to the jaw square I usually use my finger on one side to kind of hold it and normally what I'll do is kind of eyeball the this width right here this thickness of this thinnest part of the jaw and try to make it even on both sides so I'm looking at like the you know this face right here in line with the jaw I'm just going to try to hold it right there now I'm gonna use my thumb and start moving this in and I'm going to rock the veneer back and forth till I feel that exact 180 reading all right now I'm starting to get some resistance I'm making sure that I'm I got the calipers parallel I'm not twisted I'm just feeling it rub and touch all right it's just touching you don't want to force it in there you want it to what just touches so all right let's look at this and see four inches 400 we're already past this line so that's 50,000 so we know it work for and 450 so we're going to have to find the bottom and you should be right down here towards the end and it's looking like trying to get it there I can see it guys I'm sorry to be - 50 60 70 80 90 95 96 97 98 so it looked like it's going to be 498 you just add that up whatever you find on your bottom line right here in this case I'm saying that it's 48 so you add that to 4 inches 450 and that comes to 4 inches 498 thousands all right so that's a piece of chrome rod from a hydraulic cylinder rod that's just the nominal size four and a half inch chrome rod and you can see there that that's mm under four and a half inches so hopefully that helps you understand the the feel on how to feel it make sure it's nice and square and that you're not you're not pulling too hard on there you want it just to touch just touch it all right one more measurement we're going to use the big boys here these are the 36 inch veneers and we got this bearing race this is for a thrust bearing and what I'm going to do is measure this inside using the the big veneer so I'm going to try to show you how I do that it's basically the same way that we just showed measuring the outside you're going to use your fine adjust here to do that and in this case this is going to work out to my favor the jaws you want to set them down on the face there we're going to go ahead and pull these back that one I'm going to make sure that it's sitting down square we're about at our 180 so I'm going to go ahead and lock this one here and I'm trying to get it to where you guys can see this these things are pretty heavy so maybe it's not a good choice to use these but we'll go with it and I'm using the thumb screw right here to pull the jaw back very lightly and I'm just going to run it back and forth until I feel the touch of a 180 and it's touching there that feels good feels like a good measurement so we're going to read the top for our inside and it looks like it's right on eight inches you count from the front gone down right eight inches there's our there's our zero so we're actually at 7 inches 999,000 seven nine ninety nine so you take the 900 plus 50 thousandths plus whatever this one's going to add up to in this case 49 so seven point nine nine nine that's your inside reading of this all right guys that's going to conclude this video and I really hope that what I said and what I tried to show there was helpful in some way to you hopefully the guys that really didn't understand how to read a vernier caliper can take what I showed and apply that you go out and practice and hopefully start getting a little better feel just remember some of the key points that I was trying to show you it's it's all about the feel whenever you're using that little thumb the little thumb screw to adjust it make sure that your jaws are square and perpendicular to your work on everything nice and square and you want to run that thing back and forth and just feel that touch when you get that touch you're there if you get that right the vernier calipers as long as they're good vernier calipers they'll read dead nuts read on so you know what I showed you is just a couple examples on how to use the tool I was really just trying to show how to read the scale but there's a lot of useful ways to use a vernier caliper in the shop you know some people they look past them and they think mics and digital calipers is a way to go for everything I oftentimes run into jobs run in the big lathe and I'm turning short pieces of plate or a tube something of that nature say like I've got a machine a register on something which is only about a quarter-inch wide the perfect tool to measure a register whether it be a male or female register it's a venire calipers like this and I use them all the time for stuff like that you can use digital calipers they work fine too but a vernier caliper that's what that's another application that it's really good for so I just want you to try keep that in mind too so one more thing that I was going to mention this is something that my granddad had pointed out to me years ago his 12-inch veneers that I've actually got hanging up on the wall now you know he was telling me he goes those are useful whenever you're you're out there in the shop and you're trying to find a piece of material you know you're walking around the bandsaw and your stock rat and you need to measure something let me loosen those up veneer caliper has a has a lot wider jaw than your standard six-inch calipers that most people use so you can come up to some larger diameter stock like this and very easily look at it to see what size you're hunting you know what you're looking at right there so that's another use for a vernier caliper especially like the the older ones that people don't normally use all the time they're just great for things like that walking around trying to find a piece of stock or just quickly measuring I DoD to see what a nominal size is so I wanted to I want to throw that out there too that was something that granddad had had told me a long time go and it's always stuck with me and I've used his for that but I got his retired now in there on the on the wall so I can see them and they remind me of him and bringing these out actually reminded me of both my dad and my granddad so anyway I hope you enjoyed the video and again leave me a comment hopefully you give me a thumbs up if you liked it if you got any more suggestions on what you would like to see in future episodes of shop Talk drop me a line leave me a comment and we'll see you in the next episode

Channel: Abom79

Views: 89,369

Rating: 4.9625568 out of 5

Keywords: abom79, machine shop, machinist, machinist tools, precision tools, precision measuring, machine shop tools, vernier calipers, calipers, starrett, starrett tools, starrett calipers, starrett vernier calipers, how to read calipers, how to read vernier calipers, shop talk, machine shop talk, shop talk 11

Id: rdFwZaRgO8s

Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2016