I have been a Machinist for 30+ years, and this video is spot-on. Accurate measurements can make the difference between a piece of junk, and a beautiful instrument

ty stewmac, you folks continue to help me out beyond just making and offering good tools.

If I may add a thought to your remarks about measuring in the metric system... Lutherie for me is a second vocation, in my retirement. But for forty years I was a professional organbuilder--that's pipes, not prosthetics|! I got my training in the workshop of the late Hellmuth Wolff, in Laval, Québec, Canada. Hellmuth was Swiss, so you can bet his shop ran in nothing but metric! I, of course, was brought up on imperial units, like everybody else, so I was faced with a...learning experience, let's call it. This being Québec, Hellmuth's shop ran in French, so make that *two* learning experiences! Why do I bring up my wrestling with French? Because learning a second language proved very pertinent to getting comfortable with metric. I finally started getting fluent in French the day I stopped trying to translate in my head, and just started *thinking in French.* And it's exactly the same with using metric. So what I want to say to the young luthier who thinks metric is a big, impossible, complicated deal is--don't even try to convert! Just think in metric--and soon you may find its beautiful simplicity has won you over to a new way of life. Bonne chance!

Great info. Thanks for posting!

If you can count to 10 on your fingers, you can use metric. I am 67 and grew up on English but made the switch to metric. Easy, peasy. Science doesn't work without it.

There's an easier way to get a centre-to-centre measurement using callipers. Assuming the two holes/posts are the same size, you measure left-edge to left-edge or right-edge to right-edge of the holes. That result is the same as centre-to-centre - it only requires one measurement and doesn't require zeroing the callipers or subtracting the diameter of a hole (or post depending on what you are measuring). The two holes/posts do need to be the same measurement for this to work but that is the common case. Because it involves just one measurement, it has less chance of cumulative error. It is also easy to check across a few sample measurements as it involves just one step.

Thanks Stew Mac!

Great stuff presented here. Really well-done guys.

Love the videos guys 💪🏼

Great Video!!!

Thank you for the reply. That makes since to me now. Have a safe weekend. jeff

This is so so good! Thank you! Just purchased a caliper from stew mac too :-)

I'm so glad we use the metric system here

Never noticed the fret height gauge at the other end of the callipers. Thanks!

Thank you for this informational great video! God bless

I learned something in the first ten seconds of this video ☺️

i like to think this video idea was thought-up in a weekly employee meeting.

thanks, folks ❤

That Jazzmaster-style guitar at the beginning is awesome! Tell us more about it, please!

Lookin' good Gene!

Great video. Will your Featherweight Calipers be accurate enough for things like determining string gauge?

The "ah ha" moment at 8:40 was worth the price of admission.

This video should be shown in every junior high school Math class.

If I were a kid again, I would totally enjoy this video for math class. AND....no common core issues....

There are steel rules in imperial that are in 10ths and 100ths. They are usually referred to as machining rules

Spot the deliberate mistake: he said he measures the action at the 14th, but the rule was actually placed over the 15th and 16th frets.

I thought for sure they would cover this but… When measuring action or pick up height, do you measure to the bottom or the top of the rule line? So if the string is at the bottom of the 3/32 line, is that 3/32 or less than that? Is the top of the 3/32 line actually 3/32?

Very nice video . I clicked on it for some information that I am not sure about. String gauge. I my be having a senior moment here, I do not know how to convert "gauge" to ? Basically, with my caliper, when i measure my strings, how do I know if they are , say 10 gauge or 11's? Thanks for you time. Jeff

Great video! As an American living abroad who makes precise measurements daily at work, AND as someone who has used fractional inches extensively in the past and prides themselves in their ability to subtract 3-1/4" from 6-7/8" in their head, allow me to pose the following question... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN WE PLEASE JUST ADOPT THE METRIC SYSTEM?! That is all...

A note; if you are purchasing your calipers from Stew Mac you will be fine. but if you are purchasing your calipers from anywhere else. you will have to remember that not all calipers will read in fractions.

I’m good with math, but I still enjoyed this breakdown

Man, love those cm's... and mm's... counting to 10 and all, and 100... and a 1000 and...

Coming from someone who lives in a metric country this seems so ridiculous lol. As soon as you had to give a maths lesson just to measure something I was so lost. Think I'll keep the metric rule and string height measurement tool

That pie jab was dirty. 😆

3:59. Ahahaha🤣! I have zero idea of what you said there!

Do one on multimeter

Can you measure the height of the strings with the caliper?

I sent a message to support and was never answered! Do they take calls?

I think a lot of generation X grew up surrounded by both metric and imperial influences and can work with both. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

"Wood moves with moisture, humidity. Metal moves with temperature."

The USA is one of only 3 nations that still use Imperial units (the other two nations being little Liberia and Myanmar) The metric unit system is far more logical and easy to convert the prefixes. You can convert from nano to micro to kilo to mega etc by shifting the decimal point. How many inches are there is 1.7 miles? Or how many ounces are there in 2.56 tons? Converting from metric tonnes to grams or microns to kilometres is simple.

Rule with mm on one side and 32's on the other side.

I can’t wait to go to work tomorrow and tell my cut guy. Hey I need you to cut me a 2x4 @14 and 32/64ths😁😁😁

Here in the UK of course, we embraced the dual measurement system when co-forming the EEC (former to the EU). It was curriculum in all shcools since the switch to metric measurment and decimal currency around 1970... So those who paid attention at school, should be fluent in both measurements. And in Britain generally, we use metric for currency, most weights and measures (except beer...) and in engineering and science, as the decimal/metric system is adopted within the International System of Scientific Units (SI). In distance measurement, Brits still feel more comfortable with miles, but when measuring buildings or increments of a mile, feet and meters are common, but that can be age dependant. There's nothing wrong in using either system, it is just that once one uses metric, certainly in cabinate/guitar measurments, things become simpler and less confusing. The strange thing is, US scientists and heavy engineers use metric, like the rest of the world... But the US education system hasn't caught-up, like so many things in America... I think the sticking with the Imperial System is probably largely political. The UK has now left the EU... But I should imagine that most people will continue to use the dual system of measuring stuff... Except when it comes to their favourite pint. 🍺 Cheers! Old boy.

maybe its best to use millimetres

Manager Matt can manage me anytime ☺️

It’s “length..width…and height” Heighth is not a word!

How much to have him homeschool my kids?

First step in measuring: use the metric system. Expat here who misses Baseball, but not Imperial measures.

I was waiting for this to go super dark and creepy but never happened

Oh how I love our centimeters and millimeters.. so much easier

11:27 "Use the metric system!!" Yes, please. hahaha Great video, guys.

Metric system is just so much simpler. Smaller dimension, smaller number.

Micrometer caliper .

Easiest way to think about it is in mm 😝😝🙃

Trips me out how much the guy on the right (Gene) sounds like Tom Hanks…anybody else…?

So glad i live in a country where measuring systems are not stupid

How can the same nation, who has all but abandoned the manual gear shift, still cling to a system of measurement that requires you need to calculate the actual measurement, rather than just read it off the scale.

Rule. Heighth

Is our measurement expert saying "heigth"? Not an accepted English word. The word is "height" and rhymes with "flight".

I come from auto machine - it's all in thousands lol

Metric masterrace ^^

It's a lot easier to use the metric system when building a guitar

I wish they had a phone number that somebody would answer

To be honest: Metric is the proper way.

I’ve never quite been a fan of the metric system. But maybe someone who is could answer this. Why does no one seem to use decimeters as a unit of measurement? When speaking about lengths that is. We go from millimeters to meters, ignoring the unit in between the two. That’s confuzzing to a yank. Thanks, guys. Always good to be reminded that I need to upgrade to StewMac calipers. Mine are just about ready to give up the ghost.

the calipers that these people "THINK" are so accurate that most machinist already know are only as accurate as your heaviest thumb, which means that the more pressure you place on the roller wheel the more inaccurate, or trying to measure out on the tips of jaws, never trust the calipers for more then plus or minus 2 or 3 thousands .002-.003

Metric ftw! Everything gets easier. And better.

Amazing… the British doesn’t even use the Imperial system anymore.🤔

Not rule its a scale

Can someone tell the guy teaching that it’s “heighT” not “heighTH” 😂😂😂😂

"Once you learn it, the metric system makes a whole lot of sense. It's easier." Appreciate your efforts, but one minute in a 13-minute video devoted to the system used by 95% of the world !? For that 95%, skip the first 12 minutes of the video, or feel like you've been transported back to a previous less-enlightened age. Whatever you do don't bother trying to learn 64ths, 32nds, 16ths etc. Outside the US we measure guitars in metric. America tried to change to metric in the 1970s but just gave up. Other countries made the transition successfully. By the way 1/8" is 3.2mm. Calling it 3.175mm suggests that metric conversion is more complex than it is.

Please language Italy🇮🇹

The fact that you guys are still using imperial units is gross

There’s no ‘h’ on the end of the word ‘height’ it ends with a ‘t’ - it’s not pronounced ‘heighth’ if you’re talking about precision, perhaps be precise with language.