Scale Verniers?

[Anubis]

Hello all,

It has been bugging me for some time now, that what a bloke REALLY needs in this wonderful hobby of ours would be a (very handy) set of vernier calipers that can be read out directly in scale feet and inches.....

The price of accurate digital types has fallen sharply over the past few years, and it should not be too difficult for some person with a bit of electronics nonce to re-program a pair of these so that they can read in different scales....like HO, O, S and so on. Maybe even switchable between scales, as the current types are switchable between Imperial and Metric.

Anyone have any thoughts on this, or is it just another of my pipe dreams?

[NarrowMinded]

If you use calipers regularly the conversion from decimal to O scale becomes very
easy, metric conversion is a little harder.
I did find a nice ruler at a drafting supply store that has a rotating scale on it that makes it very handy so I do understand your wanting the calipers.

NM

[Anubis]

Hi NM,

Yes, I agree. Imperial measurements ARE easy to convert....especially at our scale of 1:48, there really is no problem. This is the main reason I adopted the US 1/4" to the foot, rather than the more correct European 7mm to the foot.

In this country, we went "Metric" in 1974, and I still constantly find myself having to refer to a conversion scale when measuring objects in mms. It would be rather nice to be able to read scale feet and inches dimensions straight from my verniers.

[terry2foot]

I think that either PFM or NWSL offered scale calipers once.......and they were pretty expensive.

If you are currently using the "special offer" Chinese digital calipers available in the UK, then they have switchable metirc/imperial displays. I find the small 0/4" or 0/100mm very handy for my modelling.

A word of warning though; (for all sizes) remove the button cells between sessions otherwise they run down.


Terry2foot

[ebtnut]

Yes, PFM once offered a very nice vernier caliper that read in both HO scale as well as US inches down to the ten-thousanth.  I've had mine for probably 35 years, so I don't know when they stopped being available.  I do also have a resin caliper that measures in O/1:48, which I've had for probably 20 years.  I think I got that at one of the tool dealers at a train show (maybe Timonium).