Starrett designed the almost 4″ jaws and 3mm diameter tips of their new 5006BZ-14/350 electronic groove calipers to measure the width of internal and external grooves. The caliper will measure outside grooves from 0″ to 12.5″ and inside grooves from 1.654″ to 15″.

They manufacture the calipers from hardened stainless steel and the tips can be installed facing in or out or to measure either outside or inside grooves respectively. The calipers read with a resolution of .0005 of an inch or 0.01mm.

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Starrett is arriving late into the digital inspection scope arena with their recently-introduced inspection scope. Made in the USA, the scope features an auto-focus digital camera with a full-color resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. The camera can focus on object anywhere from 0.4″ to infinity and displays the image on a 2.5″ LCD with a 55° degree viewing angle.

Powered by 4 AA batteries, the device lasts 4 hours on average. Dual LED’s give can be set to three different intensity levels. The inspection scope comes with either a 3′ or a 6′ water-resistant shaft that measures .42″ in diameter at its widest point and can be bent in a 2.5″ radius circle. It also has an RCA output that will connect to an NTSC monitor.

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Whether you’re grinding, drilling, or milling, sometimes a simple V-block isn’t enough to hold your workpiece steady.  That’s where a V-block and clamp set would really come in handy — they’re usually sold in pairs like this Series 278 set from Starrett.

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Highland Woodworking is selling the Starrett 3/4″ x 6′ L-R Adhesive Rule for $8.  Add this ruler to any tool or setup surface — for instance, you could slap it on your chop saw.  We found a cheaper source, but it seemed dodgy, so we went with Highland on this one.

Starrett 3/4″ x 6′ L-R Adhesive Rule [Highland Woodworking]
Street Pricing [Google]

All2ools is selling this Starrett 8-piece drive pin punch set for $36.  Sure, you can buy a cheap imported set of drive pin punches — but speaking from experience, a cheap import just won’t hold up compared to a well-tempered set when doing demanding jobs.

Has anyone ever ordered anything from All2ools?  They list the lowest prices for many things, but we’ve yet to hear any feedback about them.

Drive Pin Punch Set [All2ools]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

If you really need to know the pitch of a screw or bolt, a screw pitch gauge is probably the quickest and most accurate way to check.  There’s no trying to thread into hole after hole in a plate — you just find the leaf with the teeth that match the screw threads, and read the marked pitch.

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No matter how good your band saw is, if it doesn’t cut square it’s not living up to its potential.  Usually setting a band saw blade square to the table involves a lot of cutting and checking of scrap stock — or you could clip this blade alignment gauge to the blade and check the alignment easily with a machinist square.

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All2ools.com is selling the Starrett D34-5CME DigiTape electronic tape measure for $26.52.  The DigiTape features a digital readout that displays inside/outside measurements in inches, metric, and even fractions.  Note: The photo above may not be the same model as the one on sale at All2ools.com.

D34-5CME DigiTape [All2ools.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

All2ools.com is selling the Starrett 828A Wiggler, also known as a Centerfinder, for $15.45.  The Wiggler helps you pick up prick points, either optically or via a contact method, when you’re drilling with a drill press or milling machine.

Starrett 828A Wiggler [all2ools.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

If you work with metal frequently, you can probably tell what gauge material you’re working with just by sight and feel — for the rest of us, Starrett makes a precision US Standard Gauge for measuring the thickness of uncoated sheet, plate iron, and steel.

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All2ools.com is selling the Starrett 815 Toolmakers Hammer for only $51.51.  Ok, you may not need this tool around the shop too often, unless you do a lot of precision layout work.  But come on, it’s a hammer with a magnifying lens — how could you not want it?  And if you find yourself picking up a lens (to align your punch with layout lines, say) and then blindly groping around your bench for your hammer, this is the tool for you.

Starret 815 Toolmakers Hammer [all2ools.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

All2ools.com is selling the Starrett 298 key seat clamp set for the lowest price we’ve found, $34.34. This pair of small clamps attaches to your steel rule so you can scribe an accurate parallel line along a round workpiece, for cutting keyways and other layout tasks. Now the price is typical of Starrett, and you can often find used sets much cheaper on eBay, etc. But we’ve yet to find a better tool for the job.

Starrett 298 Key Seat Clamp [All2ools.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]

When you need to measure the diameter of a hole or the width of a slot, reach for a taper gauge. Named for their tapered shape, taper gauges measure hole and slot sizes quickly and accurately. With the Starrett No. 267 taper gauge, you can measure hole and slot sizes from 1/16″ to 1-1/16″, to the nearest 1/64″.

Made from spring-tempered steel and measuring 1″ wide by 5-1/4″ long, the gauge features four different leafs for measuring progressively larger dimensions. Look to pay between $90 and $110.

Taper Gauge [Starrett]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon(B0006J4DSK) [What’s This?] [What's This?]

Starrett combines two tools that you’d think were incompatible: a hammer and a magnifying glass. They say they integrate a magnifying lens into their No. 815 toolmakers’ hammer so you don’t have to look away from your work to find either tool.

Starrett hardens both the flat and ball-peen heads, and they chromium-plate the entire hammer for protection and an attractive finish.  A rubber mounting protects the lens from the impact of hammering.  The steel hammer weighs 133 grams, and Starrett will personalize it with a message, if you’re giving it as a gift.

Street pricing starts around $50.

Toolmakers’ Hammer [Starrett]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What's This?]

Enlarging a hole can present a tricky problem, whether it’s an existing hole that needs enlarging, or somebody made an “oops” and used the wrong size hole saw. How do you center the hole saw at the same location and keep it from wandering? This question drove the engineers at Starrett to develop the Oops Arbor.

As long as the new hole is 3/16″ larger than the old hole, you can use the Oops Arbor to pilot the larger hole saw with a second hole saw the size of the original hole. The Oops Arbor’s 1/4″ shank replaces the normal pilot bit for most hole saw mandrels and accepts both 1/2″ and 5/8″ threaded cutters.

You can get the Oops Arbor for as little as $6.  What’s it worth to be the hero next time somebody makes an Oops?

Oops Arbor [Starret]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What's This?]

It looks like L.S. Starrett, manufacturer of all sorts of cool measuring equipment, will be featured on John Ratzenberger’s Made in America — a favorite of TM’s TV Tonight contributor Nick Carter.  The press release says that Ratzenberger and crew spend a day with the workers at Starrett.  The episode airs January 9th.

Recent Starrett:

• Finds: The Hidden Edge Utility Knife
• Finds: Starrett’s Unified Shank Jig Saw Blades
• Starrett’s New 799 Electronic Caliper

I’d bet we’ve seen at least a dozen variations on the ages-old standard utility knife design this year alone.  Safety seems to be a top concern in the delivery systems of today, which isn’t surprising considering how easy it is to cut the living crap out of yourself with these things.  (Just ask Chuck.  He recently, um, stylized a pair of jeans while cutting open some clamshell packaging with one.)  So, we’re seeing more and more auto-retracting blades like the Hidden Edge by Starrett (above). 

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