Does this exist? Digital Caliper marking device?

E

eightball

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Joined
Dec 29, 2013
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36
Okay, this may be a dumb question. 

I'm wondering if anyone has made a cross between a digital caliper and an edge marking device?

Basically if a woodpeckers ruler stop and a thumbwheel digital caliper had a love child.  Something that would mark odd measurements like 6.7mm from the edge of a sheet good (don't ask).

Has anyone run across something like this?
 
I'd just use a calibrated caliper along with a marking knife. You just need to know the distance the marking knife extends beyond the caliper blade and compensate for that. This goes back to the original thought that as you introduce additional measuring instruments into the equation you may need to calibrate those additional tools. We're all familiar with the horrors, different measuring tapes, different measuring scales, different calipers that will all produce different results. Let's just keep it simple.
 
Crazyraceguy said:
smorgasbord said:
Jessem also makes one, in either Imperial or Metric, although it uses old-fashioned technology with a micro-adjuster:
Click to expand...

That's pretty slick. Maybe my first precision metric measuring tool? Thanks
Click to expand...

If you get it, I'd love to read your review.
 
smorgasbord said:
Crazyraceguy said:
smorgasbord said:
Jessem also makes one, in either Imperial or Metric, although it uses old-fashioned technology with a micro-adjuster:
Click to expand...

That's pretty slick. Maybe my first precision metric measuring tool? Thanks
Click to expand...

If you get it, I'd love to read your review.
Click to expand...

Definitely will, if I do bite the bullet. It's not ridiculously priced, but I have been slowing down on new purchases lately. Retirement is coming, even though I have been saying it for a while [blink] I am steering my efforts more toward the home shop and what I think I will be using there, more than the everyday at work stuff. That's why I am looking at metric. I have a tendency to lean that way, my Festool equipment somewhat supports that, on my own that might be a thing (the shop would never go for it). I do wish Festool would have stuck to their guns, but it is hard to turn money away, from a market that is asking for it. At least they didn't give in on the Domino, but the mix of measuring is a little silly.
 
Crazyraceguy said:
...That's why I am looking at metric. I have a tendency to lean that way, my Festool equipment somewhat supports that, on my own that might be a thing (the shop would never go for it). I do wish Festool would have stuck to their guns, but it is hard to turn money away, from a market that is asking for it. At least they didn't give in on the Domino, but the mix of measuring is a little silly.
Click to expand...

Having recently "gone metric," I can say that you'll not want to go back. The hardest part is getting comfortable with the approximate size of things in mm/cm. But if an old dog like me can pick it up, I'll bet you can, too. I'm almost getting to the point where I look at stud spacing and think "about 40cm" instead of 16 inches, lol.
 
smorgasbord said:
Having recently "gone metric," I can say that you'll not want to go back. The hardest part is getting comfortable with the approximate size of things in mm/cm. But if an old dog like me can pick it up, I'll bet you can, too. I'm almost getting to the point where I look at stud spacing and think "about 40cm" instead of 16 inches, lol.
Click to expand...

The funny thing is, I don't particularly like the cm thing. I'm fully aware that it's 10x mm, but I would rather think in mm directly.
I have the same issue with Architects. They dimension everything in feet/inches. That makes a simple length of 61" turn into 5' 1".........ah, no.
The first thing our engineering department does with the Architectural drawings, when converting to "shop drawings" is changing to inches only.
To me the FS 1400 guide rail is exactly that 1400mm not 1.4 meters, 140cm, etc.
Where I see the metric advantage is in smaller dimensions anyway. Until you get to the point of breaking out the calipers and going to the .001", millimeters are easier for smaller dimensions. A single mm is smaller than 1/16" and is not nearly as convoluted to add or subtract them.
I have done all three, fractions, decimal inches, and mm interchangeably for decades, but trying to communicate that to others does not go so well.
 
The tool room where I used to work was staffed primarily with Polish emigres.  The tool room manager was from Poland and whenever we needed to hire, he would advertise in the local Polish language newspaper.

They all switched from metric to imperial and none were in a hurry to switch back. 

Overlooked is the ease in which Imperial is divisible by 2, 3, 4; whereas metric is easily divisible by 2 only.  Not a big deal, but the one factor that keeps me firmly entrenched in the Imperial camp.
 
Packard said:
Overlooked is the ease in which Imperial is divisible by 2, 3, 4; whereas metric is easily divisible by 2 only.  Not a big deal, but the one factor that keeps me firmly entrenched in the Imperial camp.
Click to expand...

Overlooked? It doesn’t exist. Divide 11 & ⅛” by anything. Whole numbers are the same is any system, it’s the fractions in Imperial that hurt and while digital calipers can work in decimal, rules, tape measures, etc. all use fractions.
 
Crazyraceguy said:
The funny thing is, I don't particularly like the cm thing. I'm fully aware that it's 10x mm, but I would rather think in mm directly.
Click to expand...

Yes, everyone I know works in mm including builders but at some undefinable point or reason we change to cm and even the retail stores are confused, some sheet goods are listed at 2.4 x 1.8 metres and the same store sells a sheet of panelling at 2400 x 1800 mm. maybe this is because we changed to metric and had no established convention of using the system. I would be interested in how countries that are metric deal with this issue.   
 
Mini Me said:
Crazyraceguy said:
The funny thing is, I don't particularly like the cm thing. I'm fully aware that it's 10x mm, but I would rather think in mm directly.
Click to expand...

Yes, everyone I know works in mm including builders but at some undefinable point or reason we change to cm and even the retail stores are confused, some sheet goods are listed at 2.4 x 1.8 metres and the same store sells a sheet of panelling at 2400 x 1800 mm. maybe this is because we changed to metric and had no established convention of using the system. I would be interested in how countries that are metric deal with this issue. 
Click to expand...

The weird thing though is that even when buying materials, quite a lot of sheetgoods listed as 2.4m x 0.9m are actually imperial rounded down but the sheets measure 2440mm x 915mm.

I can happily convert and mix imperial with metric all the time, but a client I did a lot of work for had a metal fabrication business, and they clung to imperial religiously as all their stock was procured in imperial sizes. He always maintained imperial worked so much much cleaner and products integrated better, but I think that was a supply hangover that doesn't translate to the timber world. Especially when you also have to take into account nominal and dressed sizes.
 
Mini Me said:
Yes, everyone I know works in mm including builders but at some undefinable point or reason we change to cm and even the retail stores are confused, some sheet goods are listed at 2.4 x 1.8 metres and the same store sells a sheet of panelling at 2400 x 1800 mm. maybe this is because we changed to metric and had no established convention of using the system. I would be interested in how countries that are metric deal with this issue. 
Click to expand...

I wonder what the Stonedhenge scene in This is Spinal Tap would have been in metric. Seems easier to confuse ' with " than mm with cm, and one might think that two of them (") would be bigger than one of them ('), so kind of understandable?......
 
Well, like I have said before, we work strictly in inches at the shop. So, feet and inches would be as weird as cm and mm. And yes, I do regularly deal with things as long as 500" purely in inches.

I have always thought it was odd that the European market sticks with an American sizing structure?
It would seem more logical to have some not-so-random size? 2m x 4m or 1.5m x 3m rather than the 1200mm x 2400mm, which is roughly equal to 48" x 96"
Then you have Baltic Birch ply at 60" x 60" what do they call that there? 1500mm x 1500mm or 1.5m x 1.5m
 
Centimeters confuse the transition from Imperial to metric. My advice is to not use them or when encountering them just add a zero and think in millimeters. There is no good frame of reference for CMs except in obstetrics.
 
greg mann said:
Centimeters confuse the transition from Imperial to metric. My advice is to not use them or when encountering them just add a zero and think in millimeters. There is no good frame of reference for CMs except in obstetrics.
Click to expand...

Amen...just another decimal point and a couple of extra zeros to confuse folks.
 
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