# Is a Harbor Freight fractional dial caliper good for average woodworker?



## SMP (Aug 29, 2018)

I have an old plastic/nylon dial caliper that i have grown not to trust. It seems the jaws aren't parallel so the reading is different along the jaws. Good enough for a lot of work. But i have a couple projects which require closer tolerances. Don't want to spend a lot. Was looking at the Harbor Freight fractional dial caliper(non digital). Anyone else have this? Looks like with coupon i can get for about $20.


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## GR8HUNTER (Jun 13, 2016)

i do have this caliper and it works rather well for me BUT for some it might not cut the mustard if you know what I mean :<))


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## recycle1943 (Dec 16, 2013)

I have a Wixey WR100 6" caliper $37 on Amazon It is precise and solid. I use it extensively on my bowls and for setting the fence on my table saw.
Worht the money to me !


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## controlfreak (Jun 29, 2019)

I have been using the digital one and don't have any complaints. Of course something like this tends to work until you realize it doesn't.


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## SMP (Aug 29, 2018)

> I have been using the digital one and don t have any complaints. Of course something like this tends to work until you realize it doesn t.
> 
> - controlfreak


The digital one is $4 cheaper than the dial. And that's what i am afraid of is that it will act weird and then I won't trust it. I saw some reviews that said moving the digital ones back and forth can make them glitch so to always zero out. Or if the batteries get low they may become inaccurate. That is why i am hesitant to get a digital one. If I don't trust a tool it goes into the drawer where my inaccurate combination squares are that i don't have the heart to throw away.


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## fivecodys (Dec 2, 2013)

I have the digital version and it has been working fine for me for a few years now.
It was on sale for $10 when I bought it. I check it now and then with a set of feeler gauges I have. 
It is way more accurate than I am.


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## Knockonit (Nov 5, 2017)

i've several in my reloading room, the HF and starrett, no difference otehr than cost. both in digital and dial,

i tend to gravitate towards the digital, less grey matter required.


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## GrantA (Jul 19, 2014)

My experience is that the cheap ones are fine for woodworkers when they work. I've had to fiddle with the battery door, adding paper shims so it would make contact. That's the 4" in the bottom of this pic. I've had it not turn off therefore burn up batteries. 
I have been very happy with my kobalt branded ones from Lowe's. The battery door screws on and I haven't had trouble with it turning off. Then you have top of the line mitutoyo, you're not splitting thousandths with wood working though


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## MrUnix (May 18, 2012)

Wait for a coupon and you can get the HF digital plastic model for $1.99. It is more than sufficient for woodworking and works good enough for rough metal work as well. The more expensive metal digital one goes on sale routinely for $9.99 and is as accurate as hundred dollar models sold elsewhere. I have both and use the plastic one for most everything - leaving the metal one for more precise metalworking tasks. The upside to the plastic one is, at $1.99, you don't mind too much when you drop it off a bench or run over it with the car 

Cheers,
Brad


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## Gene01 (Jan 5, 2009)

The dial and the digital work fine for woodworking. And, mine give identicsl readings.


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## SMP (Aug 29, 2018)

Thanks all for the feedback! Just a quick update. I stopped at HF on the way home. Since most of you vouched for the accuracy I decided I was walking out with one of them(after paying of course), kind of leaning towards digital for no-thinking reading I opened all of the various 6" models. There were 2 that were fractional a digital and dial. Something didn't feel right to me about the digital one. The plastic to metal on the thumbwheel seemed to slip. And if I moved it back and forth it jumped around and landed where it landed. The digital also had a LOT of fractions. Fractions i've never seen or forgot since high school math, or maybe one of the snap on 300 piece drill bit sets. The other thing on the digital was that it looked like without the display it was pretty much useless, just inches and 1/10 of inches. The dial version on the other hand has an all metal thumbwheel mechanism and feels a lot smoother, more positive action and doesn't "click" each revolution. The dial version, however did not have the zero button which is really nice on the digital version. You actually have to loosen up the bezel lock screw and rotate the bezel, then tighten the bezel screw without turning the bezel. I sat there about 15 minutes trying to decide and ultimately went with the dial version, $18 with coupon, mainly because of the smoother feel of the thumbwheel, and the fact that if the dial were to break, i can still use it like a stainless steel vernier with 1/8" markings

Ok now i can get started on my new CzeckEdge kits that came in the mail today.


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## Rick Dennington (Aug 27, 2009)

I have the Starrett digital calipers, and they are dead-on accurate…..You get what you pay for….!!


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## Chashint (Aug 14, 2016)

I have been using the HF fractional caliper for a couple of years. 
It took me a while to get used to it being fractional but it has been a good tool. 
The HF lives out on the workbench and has held up well. 
I do have an expensive digital caliper but I might as well not have it since it stays put away in its case.


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## SMP (Aug 29, 2018)

Btw, this is what happened to my Swiss made nylon/fiberglass one after years of watch repair. Was hard to get a picture against a light bulb, but you can see the tip of the jaws seperate by about mm and then taper to the inner jaws being flush. But you can see why i want a stainless steel model


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## Underdog (Oct 29, 2012)

I've bought quite a few of the 6" stainless digital calipers from HF. I've not been displeased with them. Of course I only buy them when they're on sale for $9.99.
For that price if they get dropped or the battery door is lost, I can just buy another one.

Of course the two I have at home don't have any problems whatsoever. It's the ones at work that get dropped and abused. So given that, I'd buy the cheapo digitals every time. Why buy an expensive one if it's just going to get abused?


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## MPython (Nov 30, 2018)

I have both fractional and decimal calipers. The fractional one is a dial caliper and the decimal one is digital. I use the fractional one all the time in my wood shop. I prefer the one with the dial readout because I can tell at a glance whether 27/64 is greater or smaller than 3/8 without having to stop and think about it. The decimal one is handy too, but most of my woodworking is done in fractions of an inch so the fractional caliper is a natural. Mine is an inexpensive one I got from Highland Woodworking years ago. I don't know anything about the Harbor Freight one, but my guess is that it's just fine. They're not complicated instruments.


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## Markmh1 (Mar 9, 2017)

I'm a toolmaker, and I've found most dial calipers are accurate to +/- .002, even the plastic ones.

Don't ask them for better than that. If you do need better, go to a micrometer. All measuring tools need
to be checked. This is usually done with gauge blocks, even the cheap ones work well for a quick check. I
have a set that was about $120 for .1 to 4.0. These got me through most of my career.

My most often used dial caliper was a Starrett, again +/- .002. I did a brief stint as a customer service tech
and needed a caliper for that. The office was wide open for others borrowing tools, I didn't care for that so
I bought a used Starrett 123 vernier on E-pay. That was a smart move. I got +/- .002, and no one else in the 
office knew how to read it.

Good luck on your calipers. I don't think a calipers is overkill for woodworking, accuracy is what YOU want.

Mark


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## Lazyman (Aug 8, 2014)

That HF fractional dial caliper looks identical to the Shop Fox one I bought on Amazon except that the scale seems to be printed slightly differently. I love mine. it just so much easier for woodworking than decimal and especially the digital fractional caliper I bought. With the digital ones, I always have to stop and think about how close that is to the measurement I am shooting for. With the analog one, you can *see *how close it is to the nearest 8th, 16th or even 32nd without having to do any mental math.


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

I have used the HF digital 6in for years with no complaints/issues. It fianally gave up the ghost last year, so I turned around and bought TWO more from HF, another 6in and an 8in digital. I also have micrometers, but they just are not needed, other than to "test" the accuracy of the digital read-outs.

BTW, my micrometers are not digital, however they do read-out in decimals to the order of 0.0001in. IMO, just sneeze on your piece of wood and watch it swell before your eyes… ;-)


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## mel52 (Sep 4, 2017)

I also use the HF one and it has worked very well for me. It is good enough to tell the difference in wood swell when the wood is left out overnight in my shop at higher humidity. Not that the last sentence makes any difference, it's just that I like to play with the darn thing. Mel


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## ArtMann (Mar 1, 2016)

I have an 8 inch digital caliper that I bought about 10 years ago from Harbor Freight for something like $10 on sale and it still reads the same as my Brown and Sharpe $100 caliper I inherited from my job. Sometimes you get much more than you pay for if you are shrewd. Sometimes you pay too much if you just like to own prestige brands.


> I have the Starrett digital calipers, and they are dead-on accurate…..You get what you pay for….!!
> 
> - Rick Dennington


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

I got so fed up with finding the batteries dead when I really needed the caliper. I gave it to a buddy and made on of those "hurts only once, when you buy it" purchases. The machinist version is dead on, and I seem to be able to leave the thing on for months a time with impunity.

In short, it's a lifetime purchase.


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## DS (Oct 10, 2011)

The Digimatic version is used in all kinds of industrial and automation applications. Automobile, Aerospace, etc., etc.

Straight out of college, (1989), I had to program an interface to the SPC data port on the Digimatic to allow automated equipment to read the calipers.
The company I worked for was manufacturing Inclinometers and accelerometers under various private labels - including Digimatic.

The Japanese are sticklers for calibration of their tools. They would re-certify the tools and reject any with marginal specs.
I can't say the same for the Chinese.


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## controlfreak (Jun 29, 2019)

> I got so fed up with finding the batteries dead when I really needed the caliper. I gave it to a buddy and made on of those "hurts only once, when you buy it" purchases. The machinist version is dead on, and I seem to be able to leave the thing on for months a time with impunity.
> 
> - Kelly


I have the HF one and yes the battery die fairly quick. Prices are all over the place on these. I think I will buy several batteries and maybe a dial one as back up.


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## therealSteveN (Oct 29, 2016)

> I m a toolmaker, and I ve found most dial calipers are accurate to +/- .002, even the plastic ones.
> 
> Don t ask them for better than that. If you do need better, go to a micrometer. All measuring tools need
> to be checked. This is usually done with gauge blocks, even the cheap ones work well for a quick check.
> ...


This

You check them before work, and the better ones allow for easy reset to 0.0 so you can go back to it. I would look not at what a single measurement gets you. I'd look at is it repeatable, and can you easily reset it when using it gets it off. Price is just a spot in the road. If you need to go through a handful of cheap ones to get what you want, sometimes it might have been smarter to just stop that one time, at the more expensive store.

Harry Epstein is a name any budget minded tool buyer should know. Harry can save you money, on the good stuff, with wrinkly paint


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## PeteStaehling (May 3, 2015)

I have some nice Starret stuff in the shop, but use the cheap HF digital caliper most of the time rather than subject the nicer tools to be dropped and abused all day long. The work just fine and are well within any tolerance that I care about especially for woodworking.


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## jacksdvds (Jun 13, 2015)

The fractional calipers round up/down the actual measurement. You can do that with a steel ruler!


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## zipzit (Mar 21, 2015)

Wow.

Guys, we're in the Hand Tools forum. Batteries, we don't need no stinking batteries… I've got two or three high quality electronic vernier calipers in the shop, but more often than not, I find the batteries are just dead. (Starrett, etc…) I can store the batteries separate from the unit, but that's a total pain.

An alternative? 
I find the Fowler Brand tooling to be of decent / high quality… I'd recommend something like this.  $20 incl shipping.










No batteries, english & metric. Easy peasy. Highly reliable, always ready to go. No electrons required.


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## ArtMann (Mar 1, 2016)

If you can master how to read one, a dial caliper is just as accurate as a digital one but doesn't even need batteries. You can also make accurate measurements with a vernier caliper but it is a little more difficult to read. Bad battery life is a reality regarding HF instruments but I will be happy to replace a lot of batteries for the difference in cost between $15 and $100 ones. The accuracy is the same.


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## CyberDyneSystems (May 29, 2012)

Dial dial dial! (or vernier!)
Digital = pita.

The harbour freight is fine for woodworking.

I have a digital one, and every time I reach for it I have to mess with batteries. Even with fresh ones, it can be hard to read in certain light (ie: bright, like I have over my workbench)

Just get the dial caliper. It's set and forget.


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

Just for reference, to replace the HF calipers I gave away because they were dead when I went to use them, the "hurts once" I bought the Mitutoyo 500-196-30 (0.0005"/0.01mm) set, which were purchased a couple years ago, but that battery is still going strong.

NOTE: The 0.005 accuracy ones are said to be knock offs.

I bought them because I need to measure things like bearings for, say, a collector motor, bandsaw guide and so on.

I also have the iron dial version, in fractions, which I love for woodwork. I only paid around thirty for it about ten years back and it shows as comparable with the Mitutoyo in accuracy down to about 1/128th.

However, now that the battery of the Mitutoyo has proven so reliable, it's handy for a lot of wood related things too.


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## bandit571 (Jan 20, 2011)

The one I have been using..









No batteries required…( no, I haven't "zeroed" it back up, yet….)


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