The thumb-screw most distant from the vernier should be set up tight, so that that jaw is fixed in position. The other thumb-screw should be set so as to exert, on the small spring between its end and the edge of the bar, a pressure sufficient to bend that spring to almost its full limit, but not so as to let it grip the bar. The elasticity of the spring will then hold the edge of the vernier slide sufficiently firmly to the under edge of the bar to keep the jaw-surfaces parallel; to enable the correct adjustment of the vernier, and to permit the nut-wheel to move the slide without undue wear upon its thread, or undue wear between the edge of the slide and that of the bar, both of which evils will ensue if the thumb-screw nearest the vernier is screwed firmly home before the final measuring adjustment of the vernier is accomplished.
When the measurement is completed the second thumb-screw must be set home and the reading examined again, for correctness, to ascertain if tightening the screw has altered it, as it would be apt to do if the thumb-screw was adjusted too loose.
The jaws are tempered to resist wear, and are ground to a true plane surface, standing at a right angle to the body of the bar. The method of setting the instrument to a standard size is as follows:—
The zero line marked 0 on the vernier coincides with the line 0 on the bar when the jaws are close together; hence, when the 0 line on the vernier coincides with the inch line on the bar, the instrument is set to an inch between the jaws. When the line next to the 0 line on the vernier coincides with the line to the left of the inch line on the bar, the instrument is set to 11⁄1000 inches. If the vernier slide then be moved so that the second line on the vernier coincides with the second line, on the left of the inch on the bar, the instrument is set to 12⁄1000 inches, and so on, the measurement of inches and fiftieths of an inch being obtained by the coincidence of the zero line on the vernier with the necessary line on the bar, and the measurements of one-thousands being taken as described.
But if it is required to measure, or find the diameter of an existing piece of work, the method of measuring is as follows:—
The thumb-screws must be so adjusted as to allow the slide to move easily or freely upon the work without there being any play or looseness between the slide and the bar. The slide should be moved up so as to very nearly touch the work when the latter is placed between the jaws. The thumb-screw farthest from the vernier should then be screwed home, and the other thumb-screw operated to further depress the spring without causing it to lock upon the bar. The nut-wheel is then operated so that the jaws, placed squarely across the work, shall just have perceptible contact with it. (If the jaws were set to grip the work tight they would spring from the pressure, and impair the accuracy of the measurements.) The thumb-screw over the vernier may then be screwed home, and the adjustment of the instrument to the work again tried. If a correction should be found necessary, it is better to ease the pressure of the thumb-screw over the vernier before making such correction, tightening it again afterwards. The reading of the measurement is taken as follows:—
If the 0 line on the vernier coincides with a line on the bar, the measurement will, of course, be shown by the distance of that line from the 0 line on the bar, the measurement being in fiftieths of inches, or inches and fiftieths (as the case may be), but if the 0 line on the vernier does not coincide with any line of division on the bar, then the measurement in inches and fiftieths will be from the next line (on the bar) to the right of the vernier, while the thousandths of an inch may be read by the line on the vernier which coincides with a line on the bar.
Suppose, for example, that the zero line of the vernier stands somewhere between the 1 inch and the 11⁄50 inch line of division on the bar, then the measurement must be more than an inch, but less than 11⁄50 inches. If the tenth or middle line on the vernier is the one that coincides with a line on the bar, the reading is 110⁄1000 inches. If the line marked 5 on the vernier is the one that coincides with a line on the bar, the measurement is an inch and 5⁄1000, and so on.
For measuring the diameters of bores or holes, the external edges of the jaws are employed; the width of the jaw at the ends being reduced in diameter to enable the jaw ends to enter a small hole. These edges are formed to a circle, having a radius smaller than the smallest diameter of hole they will enter when the jaws are closed, which insures that the point of contact shall be in the middle of the thickness of each jaw. In this case the outside diameter of the jaws must be deducted from the measurement taken by the vernier, or if it be required to set the instrument to a standard diameter, the zero line on the vernier must be set to a distance on the bar less than that of the measurement required to an amount equal to the diameter of the jaw edges when the jaws are closed. This diameter is, as far as possible, made to correspond to the lines of division on the bar. Thus in the instrument shown in [Fig. 1392], these lines of division are 1⁄50 inch; hence the diameter across the closed bars should, to suit the reading (for internal measurements) on the bar, be measurable also in fiftieths of an inch; but the other side of the bar is divided into millimètres, hence to suit internal measurements (in millimètres or fractions thereof) the width of the jaws, when closed, should be measurable in millimètres; hence, it becomes apparent that the diameter of the jaws used for internal measurements can be made to suit the readings on one side only of the bar, unless the divisions on one side are divisible into those on the other side of the bar. When the diameter of the jaws is measurable in terms of the lines of division on the bar, the instrument may be set to a given diameter by placing the zero of the vernier as much towards the zero on the bar as the width of the jaws when closed. Thus, suppose that width (or diameter, as it may be termed) be 10⁄50 of an inch, and it be required to set the instrument for an inch interval or bore measurement, then the zero on the vernier must be placed to coincide with the line on the bar which denotes 40⁄50 of an inch, the lacking 10⁄50 inch being accounted for in the diameter or width of the two jaws.
But when the width of the jaws when closed is not measurable in terms of the lines of division on the bar, the measurement shown by the vernier will, of course, be too small by the amount of the widths of the two jaws, and the measurement shown by the vernier must be reduced to the terms of measurement of the width of the jaws, or what is the same thing, the measurement of the diameter of the jaws must be reduced to the terms of measurement on the bar, in order to subtract one from the other, or add the two together, as the case may require.