A small gloat?

[steven c newman]

When back to an estate sale this morning, more to take a bunch of pictures of "Olde Arn" than to buy much....only had a dollar,anyway

I did find a rusty piece of metal I could carry back to the van...offered a dollar for it....sold.
dividers.jpg
Needed a bit of clean up...tape measure said it was 19" long.
So, I wire wheeled it fairly clean
IMAG0003.jpg
Just enough to get the rust off. I found a name stamped ..
IMAG0002.jpg
Something about..LSStarrett Co. Athol MASS. USA?
Not sure what the smaller knob is for, though...
IMAG0004.jpg
Might give the threads a spot of oil,and call it good? just a $1.....

[steven c newman]

BTW: some of the stuff there was a bit too large to take home..
lathe.jpg
Tucked away in a corner of the fellow's shop, under a line shaft. American Tool Works metal lathe. Drill presses were a bit too big, as well..
drill presses.jpg
One line shaft driven, one with a motor. Among bucket of tools, a 113 10" tablesaw, an air compressor that needed a Bobcat just to move it around.

I don't get my SSI check for at least another week...figures.

[george wilson]

That caliper is equipped with a device that enables it to make a measurement,be opened wide to clear an obstacle,then carefully closed again to the exact thickness setting it had been measuring. They MIGHT be called "repeating calipers". I can't recall.

Suppose you wanted to know the thickness of a casting,but it had a thicker edge around the area that you wanted to measure. You can close the caliper onto the area you want to take the thickness of. I think you tighten the large wheel and loosen the small thumb wheel. You can swing open the caliper,remove it,and CAREFULLY re close it to where the small thumb wheel could be re tightened. Then,the jaws of the caliper will show you how thick that casting was where you had measured it.

I THINK that's correct. But,it has been a very long time since I used my calipers of that type. I can't recall the correct name for those calipers either. Another thing I've forgotten. Play around with them,you'll figure out how they operate with the info I have given to you.

The name on them is "The L.S.Starrett Co.,Athol,Mass. One of the most famous American toolmakers of all time. Still in business today,making mostly machinist's tools.

It looks like there might be a lot of interesting things inside that old time capsule! The smaller drill mounted on the wall is a blacksmith's "Post Drill". You ought to pick that one up if you can buy it. Those are always in demand by hobby blacksmiths,and fetch a fair price. Look up the term on Ebay,and see what they are GETTING(NOT what they are ASKING). You could possibly buy it and sell it at a good profit.

I HATE to say it,but if that old lathe is going to be scrapped,those cast iron legs are much in demand by interior decorators who use them for table legs for an "Industrial" themed decoration. Not my style,and a lot of old legs get separated from their lathes like that. Years ago,though,I found a pair of those old cast iron legs in a junk yard,already separated from the lathe,which was not there. I bought the legs and used them to make a good wire drawing machine for a silversmith shop. I think you can usually sell those legs for $200.00 a pair,but they may be worth more now. Check Ebay again for lathe legs.

[Jim Belair]

On the Starrett calipers I have of that type the small wheel is a fine adjustment of the opening. The screw applies a tapered shoulder against a tapered shoulder on the leg to move the spread slightly.

[george wilson]

That's a different model of caliper. But,I could be mistaken. The pictures are too fuzzy to see if there is a slot on one side of the small thumb screw or not,so that the calipers may be opened via the slot. I do have some calipers that are as I describe. And,I paid $1.00 for mine,too,though they are worth more. Sort of an obsolete tool now,but many of my tools are obsolete! I normally use a direct reading caliper that has a scale on one end so you can directly read the measurement. One of those is a brass one I made,and am seen using to measure the thickness of a violin top in my film. I'd photograph them,but they are missing a small part that I need to re make.

[Bill Houghton]

I'm with Jim - that looks like the fine adjustment found on some Starrett calipers of that type - and with George - the picture could use more detail to confirm either hypothesis.

Those are inside calipers, by the way - the back jaw will slide past the front one, so that the ends point out.

[steven c newman]

There is indeed a slot under the small knob. There is also a cone beside the knob. Knob has a tapered section that bears against the cone.

On the shaft for the large "wheel" threre seems to be a ball end. Ball threads onto the shaft.

First time I have ever had one of this, so I am learning all I can about them.
IMAG0004.jpg
Showing the two knobs. I could try a couple more, without the knobs in the way. Camera does NOT have a Macro setting, sorry.

[george wilson]

Play around with the mechanizmo and figure out which it iz! I don't feel like digging mine out and taking pictures of them right now. Mine are Brown and Sharpe,BTW. But,the 2 makes are pretty identical.

[steven c newman]

Ok, I'll post a few "detail" pictures, then
IMAG0004.jpg
large wheel..
IMAG0003.jpg
Small knob details.
IMAG0002.jpg
Cone shaped bump by bolt.
IMAG0001.jpg
"Slot" is a bit of an oval.
Any more details needed?

[Alfred Kraemer]

Steven,

What you have is a caliper with fine adjustment - as Bill and Jim pointed out. George - I think - is talking about a transfer caliper(?).
I have seen - and once or twice used used - one of those calipers. I don't own one because the little Starrett firm joint calipers are more than enough for my purposes.
Calipers with fine adjustment - with that little conical adjuster knob - often also come with the transfer arm on the other side. They are quite pricey I recall - well over $100 for a Starrett version.
I once made the mistake of getting too curious as to how the fine adjustment mechanism works and loosened the screw that holds the short fine-adjustment arm in place.
On the underside is a strong small spring that allows a very small range of movement of the small arm vs. the leg. If you open the mechanism, the spring is prone to jump out and then hard to find and reinsert.
For a buck it is quite a deal. Even if you don't need the fine adjustment, but have use for a caliper that size, these calipers come with a locking mechanism that is rock-solid.

Alfred

[steven c newman]

There IS a slotted screw holding the small arm in place.....I left it alone. Have oiled the threads the two knobs turn on. Calipers seem to lock at a setting and stay there. Not sure of the model number for this 19" long caliper. IF Starrett even used one.

[Bill Houghton]

Not sure of the model number for this 19" long caliper. IF Starrett even used one.

Calipers and dividers are generally designated by the distance from the pivot point to the tips - this distance, not the overall length, is what determines the maximum opening. And the area above the pivot point (opposite the working end of the tool) will vary quite a bit, from not much in firm joint calipers to quite a lot in lock joint and spring calipers. You've got 18" No. 39 lock joint calipers*.

By the way, George Wilson's initial thought, that these might be transfer calipers - unlock the transfer arm to (in this case) close down the calipers to a narrower setting, then return to the measured setting by locking the slotted arm again - was not off base. On the side you've shown, the No. 39 lock joint calipers and the No. 37 lock joint transfer calipers look identical. The unlocking arm is on the back side of the other arm (that is, the arm without the fine adjustment). Had you flipped them over, the locking arm would have shown/not shown. That the non-fine-adjustment arm seems to be sitting flat on the benchtop in your photos leads me to think that these are No. 39 calipers. Other makers may have put the transfer arm in a different location; so you can't rely on what I just said to determine what you've got in future buys by other makers.

Transfer calipers are useful when you need to make a measurement around an obstruction. For inside calipers, for instance, they'd be useful where the top of a hole is smaller than further down into the hole. This is an infrequent issue on woodworking; more often something you want to know when working on machines. Further for instance, a cylinder in an auto (or other internal combustion) engine tends to wear most in the center, and hardly atall at the top and bottom. If you're determining how much you're going to have to remove from the cylinder walls to make it right again, you want to know how worn the cylinder is at its worst.

Starrett had/has model numbers for all their tools, but I've noticed they were inconsistent about putting model numbers on the tools.

Lock joint calipers are really handy in woodworking, because they're quick setting but lock down well, and it's easy to get the level of precision needed in woodworking; you rarely need to measure to 0.001" in wood.
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*I can answer this question thanks to my revered Uncle Charlie, whose Starrett Catalog No. 27, Third Edition, is my info source for older Starrett tools. I'm not sure of the year of its publication, but it predates ZIP codes (1963) but is new enough for postal zones (so newer than 1943).

[bridger berdel]

When back to an estate sale this morning, more to take a bunch of pictures of "Olde Arn" than to buy much....only had a dollar,anyway

I did find a rusty piece of metal I could carry back to the van...offered a dollar for it....sold.
dividers.jpg
Needed a bit of clean up...tape measure said it was 19" long.
So, I wire wheeled it fairly clean
IMAG0003.jpg
Just enough to get the rust off. I found a name stamped ..
IMAG0002.jpg
Something about..LSStarrett Co. Athol MASS. USA?
Not sure what the smaller knob is for, though...
IMAG0004.jpg
Might give the threads a spot of oil,and call it good? just a $1.....

18" isn't small. I'd call that a big gloat. Bigger than mine, anyway....

[Chris Hachet]

A very nice find!

[lowell holmes]

bowcompass.jpg


I use a drafting bow compass for transfer calipers. I had never heard the term "transfer calipers"before.

A beam compass will do for a large "transfer caliper".