Tape measures are amazing little devices. Just about everybody in a construction setting use these little devices. Heck, just about everybody in any setting knows what a tape measure is. Being a fabricator of some sort for the majority of my life, I couldn’t have gotten away with not using a tape measure. If someone needed a bolt, they measured it. If they wanted to cut a board, they measured it. All with a tape measure….

Buying one

OK, you have the jist of a tape measure. Now you will have to pick one to buy. In this setting there are multiple types and depending on how advanced you are, (or how much you want to impress) purchasing a tape measure can be quite overwhelming.

There are large and small, long and short, expensive and cheap… but all have one thing in common, they measure things. A main suggestion from me is that you get one that is 25 feet long and has a tape lock (the button that stops the tape from retracting pack into the case). If you are a beginner at home improvement, cost of a decent tape measure should be right at $8 – $10. Being 25 feet, you should be able to measure something as big as an entire room, or as little as a screw length. There are other little features on a tape that I will get into in future articles, but for now we will just focus on the measuring part.

Surprising

As a supervisor of a fabricating facility I had to do interviews for prospective employees. I was absolutely shocked to learn of the staggering amount of people who do not know how to read a tape measure. This statement is absolutely not meant to make anyone feel stupid, it was just something that they were not taught through no fault of their own. That being said, the next part of this article is going to be the basics of reading a tape.

The Beginning

A tape measure is broken down into first FEET, then Inches, and finally, fractions of an inch. The FEET are designated by the big black markings that are at every 12 inches (which is a foot). After that, the INCH marks are numbered marks that are continuous. Below they are depicted as the underlined numbers.

If you look at the lines between the inch numbers, they are different sizes. The biggest line is the one that divides the inches into 2 sections. Each side is 1/2 of the inch…. or 1/2 inch. So when you are reading a tape what is the measurement pictured below? If you said 2 and 1/2 inches, you are well on your way!

Breaking it down

Now we come to the nitty gritty. This is where you have to refer back to the pictures and read this again if needed. I will use the little fingers one more time because I think they are cool looking. Below we are breaking the INCH into 4ths or one quarter of an inch. If you remember anything from reading this blog, remember this – THE BIGGEST LINE SPEAKS THE LOUDEST. The number 1 line in the photo below is the 1/4 or one quarter of an inch on the tape measure, BUT the number 2 finger on the photo is not 2/4 or two fourths because it is the biggest line. It is 1/2 or one half as we previously learned and speaks the loudest. The number 3 finger on the photo is the 3rd fourth on the tape. As you can see, the third finger line drops back to the next biggest line which is the quarters. So it will be named as three quarters or 3/4 of an inch.

Now it gets hairy

Finally we come to the end of this session with the 8ths or the eighths of an inch. You need to remember that the biggest line is the loudest for this one because, even though the lines marked on the photo 1-7 are indeed 8ths they are called by the biggest lines name. So the number 1 is in fact 1/8 or an eighth of an inch. The second line is ……. 1/4 because it speaks the loudest. The number 3 on the photo drops back to being named an eighth but since there are 3 of them it is named three eighths or 3/8. Without sounding long winded, you can probably get the rest. I hope this helps someone out there. If there are any constructive comments you would like to leave, please feel free.