Pottery calipers for craniometry

[Guest guest]

> Sorry, Thad, which calipers did you decide upon again? We are

> thinking of using them to get a measurement of our 6 year old.

Kemper AL 12 (aluminum, 12-inch). The tips were blunt enough as

received, no modification required. It takes a bit of faith to

believe that you're getting an accurate measurement, since there is

no scale to read when the tool is actually on the head. But since

I'm only calculating a difference, if the same error applies to each

measurement, I'm still okay. I just kept measuring over and over

again until it seemed reliable.

The 10-inch version would probably be adequate for babies, and feel

more secure in the hand, but I estimate that you wouldn't be able to

tell which part of the beveled tip makes contact after they're opened

about 6 1/2 inches, which will interfere with measurements on

toddlers and older. (The tips on mine become parallel at nearly 9

inches.)

[Guest guest]

Thanks. It will take us some time to get a measurement on .

We can do a trial measurement on first since we have his final

measurements from last spring and they could not have gone down much

since then. (1mm drop at most, and that would be optimistic.)

-Kathy

On 10/1/2010 8:37 AM, Thad Launderville wrote:

> Sorry, Thad, which calipers did you decide upon

again? We are

> thinking of using them to get a measurement of our 6

year old.

Kemper AL 12 (aluminum, 12-inch). The tips were blunt

enough as

received, no modification required. It takes a bit of

faith to

believe that you're getting an accurate measurement, since

there is

no scale to read when the tool is actually on the head.

But since

I'm only calculating a difference, if the same error

applies to each

measurement, I'm still okay. I just kept measuring over

and over

again until it seemed reliable.

The 10-inch version would probably be adequate for babies,

and feel

more secure in the hand, but I estimate that you wouldn't

be able to

tell which part of the beveled tip makes contact after

they're opened

about 6 1/2 inches, which will interfere with measurements

on

toddlers and older. (The tips on mine become parallel at

nearly 9

inches.)