page_title: Micrometer
section_title: Customary/Imperial system
hierarchical_section_title: Micrometer / Reading / Customary/Imperial system
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Mikrometer English: Micrometer Italiano: Micrometro inglese Русский: Микрометр
context_page_description: A micrometer, sometimes known as a micrometer screw gauge, is a device incorporating a calibrated screw widely used for accurate measurement of components in mechanical engineering and machining as well as most mechanical trades, along with other metrological instruments such as dial, vernier, and digital calipers. Micrometers are usually, but not always, in the form of calipers. The spindle is a very accurately machined screw and the object to be measured is placed between the spindle and the anvil. The spindle is moved by turning the ratchet knob or thimble until the object to be measured is lightly touched by both the spindle and the anvil.
  Micrometers are also used in telescopes or microscopes to measure the apparent diameter of celestial bodies or microscopic objects. The micrometer used with a telescope was invented about 1638 by William Gascoigne, an English astronomer.
context_section_description: The spindle of a micrometer graduated for the Imperial and US customary measurement systems has 40 threads per inch, so that one turn moves the spindle axially 0.025 inch (1 ÷ 40 = 0.025), equal to the distance between adjacent graduations on the sleeve. The 25 graduations on the thimble allow the 0.025 inch to be further divided, so that turning the thimble through one division moves the spindle axially 0.001 inch (0.025 ÷ 25 = 0.001). Thus, the reading is given by the number of whole divisions that are visible on the scale of the sleeve, multiplied by 25 (the number of thousandths of an inch that each division represents), plus the number of that division on the thimble which coincides with the axial zero line on the sleeve. The result will be the diameter expressed in thousandths of an inch. As the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc., appear below every fourth sub-division on the sleeve, indicating hundreds of thousandths, the reading can easily be taken.
  Suppose the thimble were screwed out so that graduation 2, and three additional sub-divisions, were visible on the sleeve (as shown in the image), and that graduation 1 on the thimble coincided with the axial line on the sleeve. The reading would then be 0.2000 + 0.075 + 0.001, or 0.276 inch.
caption: Micrometer thimble showing a reading of 0.2760 ± 0.0005 in.
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