Cycling UK Forum

OK, plastic jaws! - that is 'one step beyond' in the cheapness stakes!

I would advise buying verniers with metal jaws; perhaps I'm wrong, but I can't see there being much saving in going to plastic jaws?

I have bought cheap digital verniers (with nicely ground metal jaws) from Maplin (£15 about eight years ago) Aldi, Lidl (£10-12more recently) and they have all been OK. If I had to slate them (by comparison with, say, Mitutoyo models) I'd say that the cheap ones are 'not at all waterproof' and in addition consume batteries more quickly (whether they are turned on or off). In fairness not all Mitutoyo calipers are water-resistant but at least it is an option (and it is a handy one if you regularly measure things doused in coolant or you think you might leave them out in the rain (ahem... ) ).

cheers

Brucey wrote:OK, plastic jaws! - that is 'one step beyond' in the cheapness stakes!

Yes, but they're posh plastic, "carbon fibre" if the advert is true. Cost about £3 with free P & P four years ago. Ebay has loads of them yet at this price.

Cheers... Alex

Brucey wrote:OK, plastic jaws! - that is 'one step beyond' in the cheapness stakes!

I would advise buying verniers with metal jaws; perhaps I'm wrong, but I can't see there being much saving in going to plastic jaws?..

CFRP is not just for cost reasons. It's also nice where you need them to be non-marring or non-conductive.

Mr Evil wrote:

Brucey wrote:OK, plastic jaws! - that is 'one step beyond' in the cheapness stakes!

I would advise buying verniers with metal jaws; perhaps I'm wrong, but I can't see there being much saving in going to plastic jaws?..

CFRP is not just for cost reasons. It's also nice where you need them to be non-marring or non-conductive.

sure; but then again if you are getting only 0.1mm resolution you arguably might as well use simple plastic verniers in that instance;



they are easy enough to read with a 0.1mm Vernier scale, I think they are also accurate to ~0.1mm, cost pennies (about 99 of them... ) , and don't have batteries to run down.

cheers

+1 for the Iwanson gauges mentioned previously. Works a treat & you don't have to add anything as a spacer to get under the hook of the rim.

You just have to make a number of evenly spaced measurements to make sure you don't pick an unrepresentative spot - I use a measure at every spoke to that side's hub flange as a way of getting a reasonable number & an even spread.

Hi,
0.01 mm is 4 tenths of a thou in old money, that's grinding country.

As Brucey says 0.1 mm is OK which it is.

If you are down to 1mm and there is concave surface on the rim its getting close to fail on average, does depend somewhat on rim type to and pressure in tyres.

just thinking - a vernier gauge won't get into/behind the grove, therefore not really measuring the actual thickness of the rim? Or am I completely confused here (and I need to get to measure my rims pdq).

offcuts of old spoke can be used as packing and allow verniers to measure behind overhangs etc. Digital verniers allow the caliper to be zeroed, allowing for the packing, and therefore a true reading can be obtained.

cheers