Quote Originally Posted by j.bickley View Post
Marv, just wow! Thanks for this nugget!
You're very welcome.

If you have a metalworking shop with a surface plate and a height gauge, you can often use those to imitate a large capacity, though not necessarily deep throat, calipers. The problem arises if the part to be measured can't be brought to the surface plate. That's where these improvised calipers come into their own.

Not the accuracy of a micrometer but most parts that big don't need to be measured with micrometric accuracy. A pi tape will give good accuracy for smooth round parts but is no help on other shapes.