VIDEO: QUICK TIPS #13 – How to Check Caliper Jaws Quickly

ANDREA HOWARD: Hello and welcome to QUICK TIPS from MSC Industrial Supply, where we invite manufacturers to share best practices with the community. Today's tip comes from Mitutoyo. They're offering some advice on how you can check the condition of your measuring jaws on your calipers. Let's take a look.

NARRATOR: On calipers, the conditions of the measuring jaws over time is always a concern. For the external measuring faces, before you begin measuring anything, you bring the measuring faces close together, but not touching. And then look at the gap between them in front of a light. This may look silly, but it actually works. The use of the light gap is an efficient way to see any wear or bending of the jaws.

If you see something, you can then do a more thorough and quantitative test by using a gauge pin. This is done by simply moving the gauge pin from near the beam to the tips of the jaws while observing the readings. Here, all the values are zero, so we know that the flatness and parallelism of the jaws are in good shape.

The use of a light gap is also good for checking the condition of the internal measuring faces. In particular, when you have the crossed knife edge type like we have on this caliper. To check these internal measuring jaws, you don't create a gap, but instead you close the calipers and then slightly rotate it and look at that gap at an angle to check the condition of the measuring faces.

ANDREA HOWARD: To find out more about the precision of Mitutoyo calipers, go to www.mscdirect.com/mitutoyocalipers. Thank you Mitutoyo. In an industry where being precise can help an average company become an exceptional company, I can't imagine a better example of the perfect quick tip. See you next time.