What Does It Do?

It's a groove for the ruler slide...

Sorry, no.

It's a probe for measuring the depth of holes...

No it's a a pop out angle measurement tool...

No, and no.

Look at my photograph, don't go fishing.

Possibly conversion tables printed so small as to be useless...so maybe the slot is for a linear magnifying glass...

The letters in the groove say "MADE IN SWITZERLAND."

It's a 5mm rod for checking the calibration...

It is best to keep quiet and be thought a fool, than to make uneducated gueses in order to "prove" your incorrect theory guess and remove all doubt.

If you don't know, why waste our time.

Browbeating fellow posters is not in compliance with posting guidelines...will you never learn this simple rule? Your humorless offensive manner goes against everything that has just been posted in the 'Welcome Wagon' blog...If you can't read and comprehend simple rules and guidelines, what makes you think you ride such a high horse? I'd really like to know...

Appologies. You were trying.

Your mistake came when you didn't just look at my photo.

Well you might have said at the onset that there were no additional parts or pieces...the better the quality of the original post the better answers you get...so I find it telling that you acknowledge no fault of your own, and blame the respondents as fully to blame for incorrect answers...

Those who knew the answer needed no further clues.

I'm not convinced that is the purpose of the slot, it could be, but it could be there for other reasons as well....

Then, why don't you take your ball and go home!

Or, just make up your own rules, why don't you.

Are you trying to bully me? ... shirley you are aware that is against the rules....

Now listen,kids,don't make me come down there!

Play nice!

Then it must be a key for winding up a cuckoo clock.

In a shop where I was manager,there was a red key welded to a 4 foot long, 1/4 inch rod hanging on the wall beside the door.It hung there for months without being used.

One day, a maintenance worker came in,and in an obvious panic,grabbed the key,and ran from the shop.He came back in about 5 minutes with a sigh of relief,hung the key back up and left.

A probie,who had only been in the shop about a month,asked what the key was for.We had all been waiting for that.

"Don't you know what that is for,son?"'an old timer asked.

"You shove it up an elephant's butt to unlock his trunk."

A little OT, but good for a laugh.The world needs more laughter.

It's too small to be a cow-bell holder.

We have a WINNER! And an excellent lesson on thremoplastic injection molding to reduce the amount of uneven pressures across the mold, when filling and packing a part!

I figured you and a couple of others knowledgeable in molding here would pick up on this. As you can see, this was true. All other responses were just wild gueses.

Nice Job!!!

Thanks for the recognition.

I must admit to some prior intellectual property on this specific type of item. Where I worked we had literally tons of third or fourth cycle reprocessed plastic raw material that was not able to be introduced into finished product. We developed some items to utilise that material, but even then it only made a small dent in the stockpile.

One of those items was a slide vernier, but the tool design meant that only one material was suitable due to shrinkage.

At one stage we had nearly 100T on hand.

We borrowed demonstration tooling for "airfix" style toys that included dinosaurs, zoo animals and so on. The beauty of this was that each part was of the same material and thus shrinkage was well matched within each kit, even though parts from alternate materials could be as much as 10% different in absolute length/height.

PC, POM, ABS, PVC and so on with up to 75% fillers ranging from talc to glass.

We developed a tote bin that used around 2kg per shot. 20,000 bins were made during "spare" machine time. That was a mistake. The different bins did not nest as required, jammed when stacked and so on. Eventually sold to staff for a notional cost.

I would be interested to know the reason why that lower portion (jaw side) of the grooved part is wider than the upper portion. Is it for strength, or comfort of use, or to accommodate the lettering, or to ensure a good quality moulding, or . . . ?

Only asking for my own education as my instinct would be to save material by reducing the lower portion rather than adding a groove to compensate.

I didn't design it but, my guess is to accomodate the jaws of the device on one side. Or perhaps, for rigidity. It might be that the key ring hole needed it

Honestly, with no ability measure anything but I.D and O.D. and thickness, it isn't very useful.

So you knew the answer all along, and were testing people. That should be against the rules.

Being a basically typical lazy Aussie ... wait for it ... I Googled it and guess what? n-141 yielded "About 288,000 results (0.71 seconds) "

https://generaltools.com/3-in-plastic-slide-caliper

https://www.ebay.com/p/691420273

or if you'd prefer typical lazy cheapskate Aussie

https://www.amazon.com/General-Tools-141ME-Pocket-Caliper/dp/B00004T7UH

so wold most humbly suggest that said pic is a part of the General 3" n-141 plastic slide caliper.

So onward an upward - have a perfectly plausible plonk requires attention.

The groove on the back might be there to keep your pencil from rolling off while you are doing calculations or writing down your measurements,or to keep it handy while you measure.Just guessing...

The groove is .108x.108x3.75 inches.

Hardly large enough for a pencil.

No it isn't,but it allows you to use one hand to hold the caliper and the pencil together.Still guessing----

The front side shows the answer. The groove removes unneccessary material. All about saving money and providing dimensional stability.

I think you should treat yourself to a new adjustable wrench for Xmas

Strange that the "front view" from the General Tools website does not show the through hole.

If you want to hang it up on a peg or nail,the groove allows you to simply slide it down till you hit the hole.Easy!