Teeny tiny rulers

I've got interested in watches in the last year and I find occasion to need to measure parts of the mechanism. For example the distance between an centre wheel centre and the seconds wheel (in this case, for example to design a dial).

I'm finding that calipers and micrometres are just too clumsy for this and what I really want is a teeny tiny ruler which I can lay on the item and inspect under a microscope.

Something where the major markings are millimetres and the minor one tenths of millimetres.

I know that some microscopes have gratings for that purpose (mine doesn't and I probable can't retrofit). I also acknowledge that I could get readings with an X-Y table. But that assumes you can hold the item usefully which isn't always the case.

So teeny tiny ruler. Do they exist?

Any ideas?

Iain

Hi Iain, what about these Micro Ruler for Microscopes

Regards Nick.

Queen Victoria was only 5ft tall.

Chris Gunn

What you need is a measuring loupe! The one I have is made by F+C Switzerland. "Peak" is another brand to search for.

Classic way to make such measurements is a travelling or Vernier microscope.

**LINK**

**LINK**

**LINK**

🤣 🤣 🤣

Iain

One approach would be to fit a camera to the microscope

[ a cheap ‘eyepiece camera’ should suffice ]

and then you can take ‘pixel perfect’ live-view’ measurements in software.

MichaelG.

.

Edit: What microscope are you using ?

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 12/01/2023 21:34:20

Or a travelling microscope

Could you employ a small pair of dividers adjusting the legs slowly untill they exactly span the distance to be measured comparing carefully under magnification and then read off the legs against a standard rule.

The tips of dividers can get into very small spaces. For more sophisticated operation a simple stand to clamp the dividers to so they can be positioned accurately over the watch would be useful.
Alternatively a digital image of the watch and a rule can be enlarged and measurements taken from that.

regards Martin

I recently bought a Bresser USB Digital Microscope from LIDL which claims to be "full 1080p". The mini CD in the box installed a VGA (640x480) viewer with no graticule. Annoyed, I went to the Bresser webside link given in the booklet, and downloaded Hiview V1.4 (ref 9652200).

This proved to be much better, displays a 1600x1200 image with (optional) fine cross axes graticule that can be calibrated to any scale factor by adjusting a multiplier. There are some other tools including text annotation, and the ability to save images.

The microscope appears to be a common Chinese item, available with various sensor resolutions. I have yet to make a stable stand that can exploit the performance – the included base is fairly useless. The magnification adjustment also changes the object distance, so something reasonably elaborate is needed for maximum flexibility. It may have potential for fine work such as watch making.

My Metalwork teacher was never keen on rulers either.

Come to think of it he wasn't all that keen on my metalworking either!..

I think he would have been reasonably pleased to see how i've progressed.

Lesson to all~ sometimes it's persistence @ the things your NOT naturally good at that can be the most rewarding.

Last but not least, in the interests of trying to help the OP.

I Think a filar micrometer might be what you're looking for Iain, or at least worth investigating.

Not sure they make them new, but you might get lucky on a vintage used one.

Iain

RS components sell a number of measuring graticules for use on their magnifiers. The magnifiers are rather expensive but a cheaper option is to fit them to a standard watchmakers loupe or under a microscope.

CS

Pepin the Short?

Henry VI was only 8 months old when he succeeded so he must have been a right short- arse.

Iain, do a search for The Ultra Lens
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Ultra_Lens_Co

N.B. make sure it comes with the scribed clear plastic graticule; I think they only go down to ¼mm though.

As I'm typing this (23:30), there is at least one on eBay at a reasonable price.

£15, but due to end in half an hour, and others at £15 & £25 with longer listing times.

Bill

Edited By peak4 on 12/01/2023 23:49:46

A measuring Lope like this one should be perfect for what you want..

Measuring Loupe

I have used similar in the past and found it easy to use.

I’m guessing … because Iain has not answered my question … but I presume he is working at the bench with a stereo microscope. This would make his desire for ‘tiny rulers’ perfectly reasonable, and most of the suggested approaches inconvenient.

MichaelG.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist, given the volume of past pedantry on the topic. A teeny tiny ruler:

Edited By Hopper on 13/01/2023 08:20:23

Father of an old mate of mine was a watchmaker in Northampton.

He used to turn pins and other bits for watches to a thou or two, with a treadle lathe, a jeweller's eyeglass, a pair of calipers and a rule.

Allegedly.

ref John Haines post on travelling microscopes, the third link down. I had an apprenticeship with the PTI who made this travelling microscope shown,A range of travelling microscopes or as we knew them as Vernier microscopes was made,they varied in size ,some measured in horizontal and vertical planes with two scales ,I have one of the medium size ones,found it at an antiques fair.It was an excellent apprenticehip. Production was in batches of a hundred ,98 had metric scales and 2 would have imperial scales,as most schools and science facilities in the 1950s taught physics /chemistry in metric, they found that there was a demand for around 2% in imperial and these would be sold within the next year.

Many thanks to all for your comments (both those helpful and those entertaining). And don't think I'd not expected the Queen Victoria one!

There's quite a few comments with some overlap, so I'll not address them to individuals.

MY microscope is a trinocular one (from AliExpress. Not sure if the exact one is still online, but it is from this set . I am very pleased with it, I must say and I can see it will have more to offer as time goes on. It does have a camera ( actually one bodged from a cheap webcam with a new housing) and I've written some software to view and capture images so I should be able to add a measuring tool if I wanted to.

The challenge with this is that it's a zoom microscope so I would need to recalibrate my scale (somehow) before taking a measurement. If I was clever I could link the zoom control to the software, I suppose, but that's a whole bunch of mechanical, electrical and software challenges I can do without!

The various suggestions for loups, microscopes and so on are good ideas, but would mean that I would have to measure not under the microscope - particularly a challenge with higher magnifications (I find that it's hard to light the object when your head is an inch away!. Having said that, I think that they could have some good uses (the link from Gerard in particular).

The various grating suggestions are excellent and could be used with the on-screen measuring tool to provide a baseline.

What they don't do (as far as I can see) is allow me to offer the scale up to the object (like a ruler) so I can take a direct reading. Mostly, I guess this could work (and I will probably try this for the few quid they can cost) but I can see scenarios where the grating would have to be out of focus due to where it had to be held.

An option may be to get a calibration plate and cut it off even with the edge of the grating. Might need to practice a bit to get it spot on.

Many thanks again for the input. Some really good food for thought there, even if I've not quite found my ideal

Iain