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How to Use a Vernier Caliper: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

How to Use a Vernier Caliper

A vernier caliper is used to take measurements that are accurate to within .001 of an inch or .02 of a millimeter, depending whether the vernier is imperial or metric. This set of instructions will focus on imperial, but the same methods can be applied to a metric vernier caliper.

Steps 1
Make sure that whatever you are measuring is clean and has no burrs on the edges.

Open the jaws of the caliper and position them on both sides of the piece you are measuring.

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How to Use a Vernier Caliper: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

Push the jaws firmly against the workpiece.

Lock the clamp screw so that the jaws don't move.

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How to Use a Vernier Caliper: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

On the vernier scale is a small number 0. Look at how many inch divisions it is past on the bar scale.

See how many smaller (numbered) divisions the small 0 has gone past. This represents how many tenths of an inch the workpiece is measuring in addition to the number of whole inches.

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How to Use a Vernier Caliper: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

How many smaller divisions has the small 0 gone past the last numbered division, this number multiplied by 25 is how many hundredths of an inch.

Determine which division line on the vernier scale best lines up with a division on the bar scale. This is how many thousandths of an inch.

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How to Use a Vernier Caliper: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

By adding the inch measurement, the tenths of an inch, the hundredths, and the thousandths, you will have a measurement to a 3 decimal place accuracy.

Video

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How to Use a Vernier Caliper: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

Tips
There is a handy java applet that shows a vernier in action at http://www.members.shaw.ca/ron.blond/Vern.APPLET/index.html

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Sources and Citations

Steve F. Krar & Arthur R. Gill & Peter Smid, Technology of Machine Tools. Boston: McGrawHill

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