I bought a new vernier caliper off Amazon.

How are you going to do precision engineering if you can't read the Mitutoyo scale?

He'll just use the Mitutoyo as a parallel scriber like everyone on youtube seems to :-)

In message <s8ivp6$mso$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, jon snipped-for-privacy@nospam.cn writes

Now go and buy a stock of CR3032s or remember to take the battery out when you put it away:-(

Probably easier to use CR2032s.

ops!:-)

The plastic ones are brilliant, too, cheaper, £7-8. I have one in every tool bag, like a tape measure. Mainly I use them because my eyes aren't up to reading a ruler without glasses.

I find I don't need/want the added precision of the fine adjustment wheel on the posher versions. For precise stuff I use a micrometer.

Quite. The Mitutoyo has an amazing battery life. Cheap ones usually not.

I've got a digital readout tape measure.

A vernier calliper is usually for where you need a more accurate measurement than is easy with a tape measure.

Out of interest, Fred, is it your newsreader which has abbreviated my email address just above this? Be better if it removed the whole sig. That's why there is a separator.

I thought they used LR44 / AG13's. One a month if you're lucky. Or if you take the battery out when not using it, the contact breaks off after a while.

That's why I bought a Mitutoyo Absolute in the end (nice big readable display) after two cheapies broke. But yes, they are amazingly accurate for the money.

Yeah I didn't mean the calliper was a replacement for a tape measure, just a piece of equipment I always like to have in the bag. In practice I use it more as I would a ruler. I often use a laser distance meter instead of a tape measure.

All these wonderful tools. I wonder how my dad got anything done.