Fowler 74-554-730 Digital Caliper

I purchased this tool not to measure the inside of a tube, but to measure a momentary minimum press stroke of a die cutting press. I had thought of several possible options for making a tool, even contacted several tool manufacturers but I stumped them on how to measure the minimum press plate distance at the bottom of the stroke when only occurrs for a second or so. I achieve this my placing the gauge in the machine between the two plates that close rapidly and tightening the screw just enough to allow it to move, but not bounce back because the gauge is spring loaded and the device wants to go to wide open. I brought it to the showroom of several 75k presses and showed them which machines were more accurate than others. I purchased the most accurate machine they had all for a $30 instrument to prove which one I wanted! Not bad!

One thing I didn't see before I bought was that the gauge has a 1/2 inch offset, on the ends. In other words you can measure only sizes 1/2 and above.The gauge is accurate, and easy to use. I keep it off when I am using it, to save on batteries.

2 decimal places only when measuring inches, not precise enough for what I need.

cant beat it for the price. wish it came with a case, other than that it works great. happy happy happy

Great caliper

It is not fowl!It's quite good actually!

cheesy

This works remarkably well for the price. I checked it against my cheap digital calipers and it was within 0.01-0.02" across the entire 6" range. The action is a little sticky, but the spring is strong enough that it is able to get repeatable measurements. The only disappointment that I took one star off for is that the "jaws" are cast aluminum and not some type of steel, so it has the likelihood of wearing the probe surfaces over time. It does retain the last calibration even when powered off, so I can just set them to 0.5" with my calipers and zero it to that. I wouldn't do any precision machining or production work with these, but for checking progress porting cylinder heads or just checking inside diameters of parts and pieces for precision level +/- 0.05" or higher fabrication, it is accurate and repeatable enough for me.

Does exactly what it built for very nice tool for the price