using calipers as scribes?

[Toolmaker51]

Not too different; used those or Bosch in removing broken taps and dowels.

[Crusty]

A friend swears by buying cheap chinese taps so that when they break they're soft enough to drill out. He hasn't convinced me though.

[Tonyg]

Hi Des,
I agree with you, I have managed to get through 40+ years of working with calipers and have not done it on a single occasion. I have made various adjustable scribes to do the job as and when needed and now have a drawer for them. Generally if I am watching a YouTube video and they use calipers as a scribe I click it off.

[NortonDommi]

I have flashbacks to getting booted, clipped or having large heavy objects hurled in my direction if a Tradesman observed me abusing tools so I don't.

Verynears are great for setting an adjustable square to a distance and then using the square as a guide when scribing. The large base make for a straighter line than an abused verynear.

[olderdan]

Misuse of any tool especially precision items is not acceptable and ideally should not be portrayed or promoted. I have never done so with one exception, I have a very old and worn cheap caliper which I bought about 40 years ago that I will get further use from just for scribing, I you are hell bent on using calipers for marking how about something like this.

Otherwise a marking gauge is a simple thing to make. I have a 30 year old like new Mitutoyo dial caliper which is still my go to for quick measurement of drills/bolts etc. While I am at it my pet hates are adjustable spanners/ ball ended hex keys and fractional measurements.

[mklotz]

Misuse of any tool especially precision items is not acceptable and ideally should not be portrayed or promoted. ...

While I am at it my pet hates are adjustable spanners/ ball ended hex keys and fractional measurements.

I consider my ball-end hex keys a useful adjunct to, not replacement for, the normal flat hex style. They're especially handy on miniature work where obstructions demand an offset angle approach and little torque is required.

I keep an adjustable wrench in my in-house tool carrier just so I don't have to heft the weight of a full set of SAE and metric wrenches every time I carry it to the most recent domestic crisis. In the shop fixed size wrenches hang to hand on the tool board and are always used in preference to adjustable.

Couldn't agree more emphatically about fractional measurements, though.

[Hoosiersmoker]

WOW! Kudos to desbromilow for finding that nerve! If anyone has ever "tapped" on something with the tool they happened to have in their hand at the time (wrench, screwdriver, ratchet etc.) or a screwdriver as a chisel, big deal!!!! even though you've used a tool for something other than it's intended purpose. If it's wrong, it's wrong regardless of the tool you've abused so despicably. I just used a sharpie (marker) to write "Scribe" on my $5 set of "calipers"... there now it's a scribe, not calipers.

[Eaglewood]

Does this all mean that I have to stop using my mics as c-clamps?

[Toolmaker51]

Does this all mean that I have to stop using my mics as c-clamps?

Unless you need to ascertain clamping within .001...

[ibdennyak]

Lol.....I had a trainee who didn't seem to understand *feel*, but insisted on cranking his mike down as hard as he could. I finally got a 12 inch C clamp, added a scale and pointer and gave it to him in front of every one. Saved a lot of time recalibrating his tools.