• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

I-Gaging Snap Check +

Blackswanwood

Blackswanwood

Old Oak
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Name
Robert
This may be seen by some as a bit gadgety but I thought I'd share it as I've found it to be a great bit of kit.

I have always used a Trend gauge for setting the depth of cut and fence gap on my router table. Unfortunately said gauge met with an accident and so I was in the market for a replacement and ended up buying one of these from Peter Sefton's emporium.

IMG_8691.jpg

What don't I like about it ...1) the name - gauge includes a u ... 2) made in China - I naively thought it was going to be made in the US.

Those points apart I really like it.

I regularly make inlaid jewellery boxes and having a digital read out means it's easier to be accurate. Age has dictated I am borderline for reading glasses so anything that avoids putting them on gets my vote.

The anvil is spring loaded and can be sat on the router bit while I adjust it to get exactly the depth I want.

IMG_8692.jpg

IMG_8693.jpg

The magnets in the handle keep it in place leaving both hands free.

IMG_8694.jpg

It's bang on in terms of accuracy (which is something I understand I-Gaging have a reputation for) and while it may not be everyone's cup of tea it works for me. :D :D :D
 
I-Gaging as a maker caught my attention a few years ago when they produced a 6 inch Dial Caliper that is calibrated in imperial inches - marked at 1/8ths and divided down to 1/64ths. It's bang-on accurate, too.

It's an unusual tool, which I find more useful than inches expressed in a decimal form, as most of my cutting tools - chisels and the like are pre-War and Imperial.

There was no supplier in the UK, so I ordered it from the States. All up, including post and duties, it was a little over thirty quid.


IMG_0823.JPG
 
I bought the minimag digital height gauge from Peter over 5 years ago similar principle but with a metal base, I don’t think of it as gadgety it makes setting up machines a doddle particularly the spindle moulder, I wouldn’t want to be without it.
 
I have just ordered one of these https://www.chronos.ltd.uk/product/econ ... ght-gauge/

WDIG2L-2.jpg

Looks like a usefull bit of kit, and easer to read once you get over a certain age.

Pete
 
I’m in the market for a new set of digital callipers for another hobby of mine which demands good accuracy. IGaging products have some decent reviews and seem to compare pretty favourably to Mitutoyo which, from what I can tell, are pretty much the gold standard. They seem to be £40-50 cheaper. I may yet pay the extra for the Mitutoyo but would be interested in other thoughts. (Apologies the thread hijack but hopefully it’s helpful and relevant.)
 
Thank you for posting about this, does look useful, I have asked Santa for one :D
 
NickM":1xv6qpgw said:
I’m in the market for a new set of digital callipers for another hobby of mine which demands good accuracy. IGaging products have some decent reviews and seem to compare pretty favourably to Mitutoyo which, from what I can tell, are pretty much the gold standard. They seem to be £40-50 cheaper. I may yet pay the extra for the Mitutoyo but would be interested in other thoughts. (Apologies the thread hijack but hopefully it’s helpful and relevant.)
Click to expand...

It's worth looking out for second-hand Mitutoyo calipers: they're a lot cheaper and are built to last. I've never used iGaging ones so can't comment on how they compare but I have two Mitutoyo digital calipers (both bought second hand) at home and another one (bought new, but not by me!) at work and they are all excellent. I've checked the second hand ones on some gauge blocks and they're spot on. The absolute position thing is a very good thing in my opinion - no chance of them skipping a "count" and having an offset until you re-zero them. I still like to check the reading with the jaws closed every time, but with the Mitutoyo ones it's always been zero whereas some of the cheaper ones I've used have occasionally drifted and been slightly out (up to about 0.2 mm!) It's easy enough to re-zero the cheap ones, but it shouldn't be something you have to do regularly.
 
Dr.Al":3dp8vxm4 said:
NickM":3dp8vxm4 said:
I’m in the market for a new set of digital callipers for another hobby of mine which demands good accuracy. IGaging products have some decent reviews and seem to compare pretty favourably to Mitutoyo which, from what I can tell, are pretty much the gold standard. They seem to be £40-50 cheaper. I may yet pay the extra for the Mitutoyo but would be interested in other thoughts. (Apologies the thread hijack but hopefully it’s helpful and relevant.)
Click to expand...

It's worth looking out for second-hand Mitutoyo calipers: they're a lot cheaper and are built to last. I've never used iGaging ones so can't comment on how they compare but I have two Mitutoyo digital calipers (both bought second hand) at home and another one (bought new, but not by me!) at work and they are all excellent. I've checked the second hand ones on some gauge blocks and they're spot on. The absolute position thing is a very good thing in my opinion - no chance of them skipping a "count" and having an offset until you re-zero them. I still like to check the reading with the jaws closed every time, but with the Mitutoyo ones it's always been zero whereas some of the cheaper ones I've used have occasionally drifted and been slightly out (up to about 0.2 mm!) It's easy enough to re-zero the cheap ones, but it shouldn't be something you have to do regularly.
Click to expand...

Thanks
 
I'll second Al's recommendation, there are very few manufacturers that get close to or better Mitutoyo for calipers or micrometers.
I have a set of calipers, they only come out for the good stuff, everything else is done with cheapies.
they are a joy to use.

as can be seen above though, I still use old school gear as well.
 
RRP for the basic genuine is over £140 so that just to be a knock off capacitative one rather than the contamination resistant magnetic ones
Most of the knock off adverts feature the letters CNC somewhere but no mention of that on the mitutoyo website.

If you want a knock off one they are £28 on aliexpress
Or even less from Wish
Bob
 
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