My 3-4" micrometer is a bit of a mess but I had no intention of replacing it until I saw this on ebay – seller nothing to do with me etc

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I don't know what has happened to the draper mitutoyo arrangement but they did own them and probably still do. At one point they sold some very expensive items with the draper name on them that were obviously mitutoyo. These mic's were a lot more expensive than this but they now only do 0-25 and 25-50 so suppose they are clearance.

Not a size I use that often and I don't like digital mic's anyway as they tend to be rather cumbersome to use but 75-100mm are anyway so decided to risk buying one.

John

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Edited By John W1 on 25/09/2015 17:35:05

I did have a Draper finger DTI set bought from RSComponents at very high cost. I sold it eventually as I prefer plunger types and expected a fair price based on what I paid for it and RS still listed it. The person who bought it reckoned Draper had bought Mitutoyo, a couple of others agreed. As they suddenly started producing expensive measurement gear that sounded right to me. Apart from the name on the dial they were identical as well even down to the fingers and fittings that came with it. It's very hard to know who own who these days. I wondered if Black & Decker had some hand in it some where or the other as they are always buying companies up and initially getting them to produce something with B&D on it. Sometimes it's just a case of some company owning a lot of the shares of another or some sort of collaboration.

I wouldn't expect a Draper mic to be equal quality wise to one from Mitutoyo though who ever made it but they have been trying with the expert range. American companies are good at borrowing a lot of money to buy others out so who knows. Some like Ford are ailing but still manage to do it.

I have a set of Mitutoyo mic's bought some time ago when most who were cost concious would have bought M&W. I much prefer Shardlow and Starret but the price was right and having bought a metric chinese lathe I wanted metric mics. At the time they were the only people fitting carbide anvils. People had started raving about them but I recently found out why they had fitted carbide anvils. They had been left in the foam lined wooden box they came in for 10+ years. The foam has degraded and the plating has come of one of the mic spindles. I'd guess if I used a file on it I would find that the spindle isn't even hardened. The Japanese have dominated several technical areas by doing this sort of thing. Looks good but doesn't last as long as the older western equivalents and are much cheaper as well.

John

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Edited By John W1 on 26/09/2015 13:41:24

Reading the Draper wiki it suggests that they chose a manufacturer for the mic's they sell. I might have misunderstood the comment bought which should have been buying items off them. To be honest I was more interested in the sale. I had assumed Draper had an American connection as well, not British.

My feeling is that Shardlow was the best which is probably why it's gone. The best always costs. I doubt if my 0-1" by them will ever wear out. It reads to 1/10,000" too and unlike many has a slightly heavier frame to cope with that.

Discounted Starrett might work out cheaper than Mitutoyo for the same basic accuracy which is where the cheaper stuff tends to fall down. In fact they usually don't state it even in the case of this Draper one. Starrett like thimble ratchets though which means that it's more difficult to apply differing pressures to flat, round and sharp corners etc. I have to buy Starrett imperial rules from the USA – why, I can read them to better than 0.005" and mm rules don't come with fine graduations.

I've no idea how digital mic's work. A clue might be the early ones that added a counter. Something similar could be done in a number of ways electronically. I find them cumbersome as the frames are generally a lot heavier to try and get them to read accurately to 1um. My feeling is that this is a step too far by a factor of 3 at least in normal use.

John

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