Caught out by a tape measure

[Nick]

Odd thing this afternoon and something that I had never considered.

Measured some jointing on site and wrote the measurements on a sketch. Walked 50yds to workshop and laid out the joints on 6x3" beech. Subject for the timber is immovable. Just before starting to cut the joints I thought measure twice / cut once. So took the laid out timber for a walk to its new home and compared. Blow me down. The markings for the joints were all to c*ck. Baffled.

Turns out that the two tape measures I was using (on site & in workshop) differed by approx 11mm over 1M. I have checked and verified this. Both measures are same model Stanley and similarly aged.

Cleaned the timber, re-measured all using one tape only, laid out again. Compared on site again. Cut joints. Fitted. Job done. Damned hard world if you can't trust a tape measure or two. This one won't catch me out again. A little lesson learned perhaps. Nick.

[Matty F]

I had a couple of builders putting up framing. One measured and the other cut the timber. I was wondering why the timber was never the right length, and discovered their two tape measures were different. So that's the first thing I check.

[Gib Bogle]

A consequence of having such things made for peanuts in China, I suspect. Stanley used to have a good name.

[dom]

There's certainly a difference between one of my cheap no-name tapes - and the two quality tapes (& the laser) - but not that large.

Also be aware of inside/outside errors with tape hooks.

[David in Normandy]

That has caught me out occasionally when the tape hook hasn't slid back to the outside position when hooked over the end of a length of timber resulting in cutting it one or two millimetres too short. Sometimes that small error is significant.

[F Murtz]

All this reminds me of a millwright that had one of those folding wooden rules that are usually three feet, but his was four feet,he used to lend it to unsuspecting people who promptly opened it out and started measuring,3 feet 6 feet 9 feet etc

[chrisj.doran%proemail.co.uk]

I am reminded of a woodwork exam at school where just at the end I realised that the steel rule I had been provided with had its first "inch" only 7/8" long. It looked as if it had been damaged at some time and the frugal woodwork master had ground it down (1950's austerity). I was rather upset by that, as I usually came top of the class.

Chris

[Brian Gaff]

This might explain some of the items saying 1M in B/Q are slightly under length?

Is this due, do you think to this accelerating expansion of the universe we keep hearing about?

Brian

[PeterC]

On some jobs the rivet will hook on and give an error - sod's law that, given how often the proper hook won't stay put.

I get tapes from Wilkinsons because they're cheap (~85p) and don't have all the bulky junk around the outside. I check them for ID & OD on a v. good 12" steel rule (that's been verified with other intruments, as it's made in some godforsaken dump called Britain) and there's usually about a mm difference. One is spot on both ways and is marked as such.

[PeterC]

My father had a '4-foot yard-stick' - until a pup 'adjusted' it.

At work we had a 3' steel rule that had got too interested in the big guillotine. We knew that it was 35" but we somehow forgot to mention it.

[Moonraker]

We were told the story of the wheel tapper as apprentices, to ram home that your tools must be good to get good results, though I must admit I would never have suspected a Stanley tape measure. Now I have a good excuse for my c*ck-ups!

[fred]

ems saying 1M in B/Q are slightly under

Steel tape measures can vary in their accuracy along their length. (i.e.) 300mm at the beginning can be 302 or 296 elsewhere along the tape. I never use the hook for an accurate measurement preferring to start measuring from the 100mm mark and subtracting 100mm from the indicated dimension and I always use the same tape measure on the one job. Still get loads of fecking mistakes though. Senior moments ? Thick? Idiocy ? Take your pick

Paul Mc Cann

[hugh]

And make sure they slide freely.

[Jules Richardson]

At some point I got into the habit of measuring relative to 1" and adjusting the resulting reading - I've seen too many rulers with bashed ends that might throw things off (not by much, of course, but enough that it might be critical in certain situations).

The ruler part of my combination square is coated with something which knocks readings out by 1/32" or so too, because the scale's relative to the end of the steel, and doesn't take into account the thickness of the coating.

First I've heard of a tape measure being wrong, though - I'll have to go out and check mine...

cheers

Jules

[Andrew Mawson]

[MarkG]

Ironically my =A38.99 ebay ultrasonic measure with laser dot is 100x mor= e =

accurate than any of my tapemeasures...

[Andy Burns]

How do you know?

[MarkG]

Well it's 100% repeatable and ties in with a known worktop I bought.

[John Rumm]

In my youth the significance of the apparent sloppiness of the tag had not actually dawned on me, and I set about "improving" one by crimping the rivets up tight in a vice! ;-)

[geoff]

Ditto - I didn't half get a telling off from my dad