A rivet is measured by the installation thickness of the material you're going to be installing it in.
So if you're installing two pieces of metal together,
to select the correct rivet, you need to measure the thickness of those two materials together.
When you receive your rivets, don't take a tape measure and measure from this point to this point.
That's not gonna be correct. You're gonna find it's gonna be about an 1/8" to 3/16" longer than what you purchased.
So the correct way would be to get one of these babies.
This is called a rivet measuring tool (Rivet Gauge).
So it has all the sizes on the side here, which are known as gauge.
So they go from size three all the way up to size eight.
So I'm gonna try to stick it in the hole. It won't go into a three, but it goes right into a four.
So we know it's diameter is a number four and then we're going to be looking for length.
It won't fit into this. This is where you find out the length.
So it's the second one, and it comes in right at 4-4.
So this is a 4-4; 4 being the diameter and the next 4 being the length.
It can come in 4-2, 4-4, 4-6, 4-8, all depending upon the amount of material you're going to be gripping.
What this board will show you is the difference between US threads per inch and Metric thread pitch.
Two different things.
When you're addressing a US bolt, its threads per inch.
So you measure an inch, you count the threads in that inch, and that's the threads per inch.
It's the amount of threads that are measured in one inch.
As you can see, we wrote here the bolt is 1/4"-20 x 2."
The 1/4" is the diameter,
the 20 is the threads per inch, and the two inches long is measured from under the head to the end of the bolt.
That gives you your total bolt information.
In Metric, it's thread pitch not threads per inch. So it's the pitch between the two high points of the thread.
You would read that as the distance between the peaks; the 2 peaks you see there.
Then you see here: M2 x .4 x 5mm.
So the M2 is the diameter, which is from this point to this point.
The .4 is the thread pitch from the high point to the high point.
Then the 5mm is the length from under the head to the end of the bolt.
So, to measure this this hex cap screw, I would look at what hole it will slide in snugly.
We can see if it fits in the 1/4" hole...
This is the, 5/16 it's too big, it's just slopping around in there, but we know that it's a 1/4."
To measure the length, because hex cap screws are measured from under the head, we would measure it from this side.
This has two measuring points-I'm sorry, it would be this side.
We have two measuring points. This little angle cut in here is made for a flat head,
and this side is made for the length from under the head.
In this situation we would see that this is 7/8 of an inch.
When all is said and done, this is one inch and it's 1/8 less so we have 7/8 of an inch.
So we know it's a 1/4" x 7/8."
When you're measuring a flat head socket cap,
a flat head sheet metal screw, or flat head wood screw or a deck screw,
this notch right here is what you use to get the length.
The length of this, which includes the head, would be two and a half inches long.
This is another gauge where you can measure or find out what type of thread you have.
This is a metric gauge. I have a bolt that's in here.
You go to each one of these until it fits and then you can find out at that point what thread you have,
along with the size. On here it'll tell you that this is an M6 x 1.0.
So you have an M6 x 1.0 thread pitch.
So that's all for metric. We have another thread gauge, this one is for Imperial sizes.
Here's a nut. This is 1/2"-13. Put the nut on and you can find what size that this will fit on.
This is 1/2"-20, and it doesn't work. It doesn't go on.
So we know that this is 1/2"-13. I also have a hex cap screw that I have in here.
I'm unscrewing this and screwing it back in. That size looks to be a 1/4"-20.
So if I wanted to measure this flat washer, I'd measure the inside.
This is 1" I believe. So it should be more than one inch in diameter so a 1" bolt can fit in this washer.
These two prongs on the outside measure inside diameter.
This washer measures out at 1.062"
Now because I pulled it out it's possible that it's off a bit, since it's not totally straight in there because it's round.
I'm trying to get an accurate number, and that's a good way to make sure you got the right number.
So 1.059...
...that's what it's coming up with: 1.059.
That's fine because if you are putting a one inch bolt into this you need that extra room for the bolt to fit in there properly.
You can also measure with the caliper the outside diameter.
Which I'll say that the outside of this washer is...2.014 inches.
So it's just over two inches. You can also measure the thickness.
So that's 0.1175. So this is a very handy tool to have.
You can do many different things with it. If you want to measure inside this area...
...you can take this end piece here, which is basically a ruler, and you can push it in there.
Then you can push it down and now you know the depth.
That's 0.447 from the top to the bottom of the inside.