Watched a 40 year old machinist bury a 12 inch caliper in a box of rags and it flipped my view on tool care
I always thought a caliper had to live in its case, wiped down, oiled, the second you finish a cut. Then a guy named Ray at our shop in Dayton showed me a 12 inch Starrett he's used since 1985, and it gets tossed in a rag box on his bench every shift. He pulled the jaws out and showed me the wear, said the rag keeps the dust off and his hands stay warm in January, and a case is where a caliper goes to get forgotten under a pile of junk. I checked the jaws with a gauge block and they were dead on, so now I'm carrying mine in a canvas pouch instead of the plastic box. Does anyone else here keep tools out in the open, or am I about to learn a hard lesson on a big job?