bottleopop
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In my collecting of deco sodas, I like to keep a spreadsheet of their measurements and descriptions of their design elements.
I have a couple of calipers here, but they are too short for measuring the height of bottles, and a ruler requires sighting to use it. I searched the tools sections of antique stores for years but didn't find what I wanted. A few months ago, when visiting relatives, my wife and I saw a Harbor Freight outlet and we both had lots of fun checking out all the stuff there. My main purchase was a 24" calipers! They're only $10 and sufficiently good for accurately measuring the height of bottles. The photo below shows the caliper and a big ol' 28oz Kist bottle. By ruler sighting, I would record to the nearest 1/4" but I did notice that many bottles are some inches plus 3/8" or 5/8". With the 24" caliper, it's easy to measure to the nearest 1/16" if you like (or 1mm), and you don't have to use the vernier scale.
In a search engine, enter "harbor freight" and in their search window put "jumbo caliper". I looked for 24" calipers on ebay and I saw a $12 one and a lot more that were over $100.
Although I don't have a column for diameter (yet), I decided to try measuring the diameter of deco sodas. I didn't even try with the calipers; their jaws are not long enough for many bottles and the design of most bottles is too complex for easy caliper measuring. Orange crush bottles are a good example of a wide (and, to me, interesting) variety of bottle heights and bottle diameters, even when the number of ounces is the same. Anyway, I decided to try measuring with paper, pen, and an ordinary ruler. I was pleased with the success. Here is the method I used:
[ol][*]Lay down a piece of 8.5"x11" paper so that an 8.5" edge is nearest you.
[*]Lay the bottle down so that its base is very close to the 11" edge on your right.
[*]Roll the bottle away from you, holding the 8.5" edge (starting edge) of the paper onto the bottle so that the paper rolls up and away with the bottle.
[*]Holding the bottle and paper with one hand and then the other repeatedly, rotate the bottle and paper in your hands so that the paper fits around the bottle tightly. (It may help to stand the bottle up with the paper on it during this process to make sure the paper is well aligned with itself and the base of the bottle.)
[*]Make a mark on the paper where the end of the paper overlaps onto itself.
[*]Unroll the paper slightly and you will see that the distance between the starting edge of the paper and the mark is the overlap (extra) distance.
[*]Measure from the mark to the starting edge of the paper to determine the overlap distance. I measure to the nearest 1/8".
[*]Subtract the amount of overlap (probably about 3.5") from 11" to get the circumference of the bottle (correspondingly, 7.5").
[*]If you want the diameter of a bottle, divide this circumference by pi (3.14). (In my observation and opinion, the circumference is the better kind of number to record.)
[/ol]
On a 24oz bottle I tested with this method, the overlap is about 7/8". For a 64oz Mammy or Jumbo bottle, you're gonna need a bigger paper!
A 1/8 difference in overlap measurement results in only about a 0.04" difference in bottle diameter and of course a 0.125" difference in circumference.
So a typical amount of measurement error would only be about half of that.
The only difficult part of measuring diameter this way is that some bottles have a really wide part on the upper half, in which case it's best to make your overlap mark in that area of the bottle.
I have a couple of calipers here, but they are too short for measuring the height of bottles, and a ruler requires sighting to use it. I searched the tools sections of antique stores for years but didn't find what I wanted. A few months ago, when visiting relatives, my wife and I saw a Harbor Freight outlet and we both had lots of fun checking out all the stuff there. My main purchase was a 24" calipers! They're only $10 and sufficiently good for accurately measuring the height of bottles. The photo below shows the caliper and a big ol' 28oz Kist bottle. By ruler sighting, I would record to the nearest 1/4" but I did notice that many bottles are some inches plus 3/8" or 5/8". With the 24" caliper, it's easy to measure to the nearest 1/16" if you like (or 1mm), and you don't have to use the vernier scale.
In a search engine, enter "harbor freight" and in their search window put "jumbo caliper". I looked for 24" calipers on ebay and I saw a $12 one and a lot more that were over $100.
Although I don't have a column for diameter (yet), I decided to try measuring the diameter of deco sodas. I didn't even try with the calipers; their jaws are not long enough for many bottles and the design of most bottles is too complex for easy caliper measuring. Orange crush bottles are a good example of a wide (and, to me, interesting) variety of bottle heights and bottle diameters, even when the number of ounces is the same. Anyway, I decided to try measuring with paper, pen, and an ordinary ruler. I was pleased with the success. Here is the method I used:
[ol][*]Lay down a piece of 8.5"x11" paper so that an 8.5" edge is nearest you.
[*]Lay the bottle down so that its base is very close to the 11" edge on your right.
[*]Roll the bottle away from you, holding the 8.5" edge (starting edge) of the paper onto the bottle so that the paper rolls up and away with the bottle.
[*]Holding the bottle and paper with one hand and then the other repeatedly, rotate the bottle and paper in your hands so that the paper fits around the bottle tightly. (It may help to stand the bottle up with the paper on it during this process to make sure the paper is well aligned with itself and the base of the bottle.)
[*]Make a mark on the paper where the end of the paper overlaps onto itself.
[*]Unroll the paper slightly and you will see that the distance between the starting edge of the paper and the mark is the overlap (extra) distance.
[*]Measure from the mark to the starting edge of the paper to determine the overlap distance. I measure to the nearest 1/8".
[*]Subtract the amount of overlap (probably about 3.5") from 11" to get the circumference of the bottle (correspondingly, 7.5").
[*]If you want the diameter of a bottle, divide this circumference by pi (3.14). (In my observation and opinion, the circumference is the better kind of number to record.)
[/ol]
On a 24oz bottle I tested with this method, the overlap is about 7/8". For a 64oz Mammy or Jumbo bottle, you're gonna need a bigger paper!
A 1/8 difference in overlap measurement results in only about a 0.04" difference in bottle diameter and of course a 0.125" difference in circumference.
So a typical amount of measurement error would only be about half of that.
The only difficult part of measuring diameter this way is that some bottles have a really wide part on the upper half, in which case it's best to make your overlap mark in that area of the bottle.
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