ALL TAPE MEASURE TRICKS Explained...In Just 13 Minutes! (Measuring Tape Pro TIPS, TRICKS + ADVICE!)

there are a lot of tape measure tips and trick videos out there and most of them are really helpful but I wanted to make a quick comprehensive video that covers all of the tape measure Basics everything from how to read them to how to handle them even tips on how to look and sound like a pro when you're using them everything in one go so that's what I'm talking about today on the honest Carpenter show I'll start by saying that I really do prefer the Stanley power lock 25. it's quality it's affordable it's used by many Pros in the field the mylar coating is quite durable and the one inch wide blade has a rigid projection of about eight feet before it snaps which is helpful and I use the Stanley with Imperial measurements on both sides that's inches and feet they make a model with Imperial and Metric on opposing sides but I like pure Imperial because you'll have to read from either side frequently also the tab at the end is supposed to wiggle this is because the tab itself has a thickness and it slides to add or subtract that thickness itself we call this the travel so if you butt against something to measure it adds a 16th if you hook and pull it subtracts the 16th this makes your measurements accurate no matter what and the three rivets keep the tap from shifting over time even with some rough handling okay first I'm going to talk about understanding the tape if you're already familiar with tape reading then maybe skip ahead to the handling section I'll mark it down to the timeline but for total newcomers here it goes the tape is divided into feet inches and inch fractions and it's designed to help you identify these things quickly for instance foot marks are in large black arrows most noticeable inches are in full lines that reach all the way across the tape width half inches or the next longest followed by a quarter inches eighths and all the tiniest marks are sixteenths now here's the first big tip when you're pulling a tape to get a measurement you can basically ignore the foot marks instead just call out the inches for instance on this measurement I won't say five feet three inches and 7 16. instead I'll read the lower line which is the total inches pooled in say 63 inches and 7 16. that's how we do it in construction and it lets us measure and cut faster and yes of course metric users have an obvious advantage that everything is already in full numbers not subdivided feet plus their fractions are in increments of 10 which is yeah logically superior but I grew up in a place that uses Imperial or SAE so that's what I'm talking about today that said where most Americans get nervous is with all the tiny little marks the fractions it's a little daunting because it looks like a mess but here's the trick if you want to get faster at reading the tape you're best off thinking of the little marks just in terms of eights it's the easiest way to orient yourself here's how it works when I pull my measurement and it's a fraction I immediately look for the last eighth inch Mark so the front numbers are 1 8 2 8 or 3 8 the middle point is 4 8 and the back numbers are five six and seven eighths so if a measurement Falls right on a sixteenth just look at the last eight double it and add one so if I'm here 5 8 becomes 10 16 plus 1 11 16. that's really it the hardest thing you're doing is doubling your AIDS and adding one eventually you get so you recognize the relative position really quickly and do that little calculation in a blank now that's the easiest way for beginners to learn these fractions but if you want to sound like a pro do this avoid saying even increments on a job site we would never say four eights we would just say a a half and we would never say six eighths we would just say three quarters every even number falls under a larger fraction so say it as the larger fraction 5 8 and 7 8 are fine to say because they're in between larger fractions they're odd 3 16 and 7 16 they're odd two also fine to say but 2 16 should be an eighth two-eighths should be a quarter it's a little Annoying at first but if you just focus on the size of the line You'll quickly be able to orient yourself on the tape all right let's get into the more interesting stuff handling the tape this may seem Elementary but it's really easy for pros to spot a newcomer because they're really clumsy with the tape these things are more Awkward than they seem in rookies fall victim to simple mistakes so here are the best ways to use the tape manipulate it and read it like a pro first off keep it handy tape measures are your eyes on the job site always keep them close at hand always if you don't have a tool belt keep the clip on it so you can hook it to your belt or pocket if you do have a tool belt maybe take the clip off so it fits your tape pouch more easily and keep the tape measure on the side of your dominant hand you can draw it faster that way and be ready to measure to use it practice the one finger draw when I lift my tape my pointer finger instantly Gets behind the tab and pushes it out a bit this way I can hook it straight onto something and pull or easily draw the tab with my left and butt up this is something I do reflexively likewise get good at crimping the blade with your finger I don't use the Locking button much unless I'm leaving the tape extended and walking away or maybe doing interval marks but it's usually too slow to set so get good at locking the blade with your finger when you draw the tape use your pointer finger to pull up on the underside of the blade trapping it in place the fat of your finger will secure it here with friction and pressure nearly all good tape handling revolves around this technique draw and crimp and when you're reading the tape you always want to sight directly down on the blade this gives you the best view of your actual measurement looking from an angle can skew your reading so whenever possible get get your eye at a 90 degree angle to your pulled Mark you may have to climb on something kneel down or crane your neck but it's worth it for accuracy also rolling the blade can help the blade is curved to make it more rigid this means the end of your blade will float off your surface and this makes it harder to read your marked lines to get your best reading roll the blades sideways a bit this will bring the edge down into contact with your surface which makes the actual correct Mark much more obvious it also makes it easier to put your pencil Mark in just the right place also swing the tape a little especially if you're reading an edge swinging the tape back and forth a bit makes the actual measurement more obvious because it produces contrast it accentuates and confirms the mark that you're reading okay let's get into more complex stuff sometimes you need to pull a lot of tape at once like for a vertical measurement to do this without looking silly use the draw and fold method pull the tab with your off hand and draw the tape about three feet and crimp now fold the tab end down so it almost meets the case with your offhand fingers still hold the tab pinch the edge of the tape at the base pull another three feet and crimp again now release the tab and let it fall through the hole between your thumb and forefinger if you need to you can repeat the process Again by drawing out and dropping in the same way the goal is to get enough blade exposed that you can put the tab on the floor prop the tape up straight and push the bend higher with this feeding motion if you're reading a point on the wall like a door casing push the blade Bend up a few inches past your read point this way you can make the Reed on a flat segment of tape and it won't be skewed or bent if you're drawing a lot of tape down low use the floor to your advantage shoot the tape with your free hand crimp it and shoot it again let the tab rest on the floor now shoot again until the blade breaks under pressure you can feed the tape across the floor like this towards a butt Point somewhere at the far end just remember that the tape steers like a shopping cart if you push right it'll steer left if you push left it'll steer right so try to direct pressure mostly forward the opposite of this is the hook and draw if you're not butting this on something but hooking on instead you can shoot the tape several feet and suspend it in open air now you can hook the tab onto your pull Point crimp the blade really firmly and draw slowly while crimping this technique of hooking and drawing is ubiquitous in the trades and it absolutely works best if you learn how to crimp the tape well on short draws you may not need to crimp the tape at all but the farther you draw the more you have to cramp because you need that pressure why is that because you don't want to let your tape sag say you have to pull the measurement across an open span with the tape suspended in air gravity will want to draw the blade down but if your blade sags too much it'll corrupt your measurement by lengthening it so you really want to use your free hand to prompt the center of the blade a bit and you may even want to pinch and pull with your freehand so you keep a lot of pressure on your pool this way the tab won't fall to the floor and your tape pan is free to make the rest of the measurement suspended measuring is hard though so as often as possible you want to use the floor to your advantage it just fixes the gravity problem and that's state if you have a situation where it's going to be hard to pull a really long distance consider splitting the measurement instead to do this butt or pull from One Direction and make a small tick at an easily calculated measurement like 50 inches then pull from the other side to this measurement add the new number to your first number and you have your total pool this is how you measure things longer than your total tape and it also just makes some long measurements much easier but when you need short accurate measurements there's another method we call it burn in inch sometimes you may feel like you can't trust your tab for some reason or you might be pulling from a marked point that has nothing to hook onto or butt into in this case you can draw the blade and put the one inch line exactly at that marked point then make the measurement as usual and just subtract the one inch afterwards sometimes I'll even do this with a 10 inch mark because your hand can get in the way when you hold near the one the point is it doesn't matter where you start the measurement from as long as you understand what number to subtract afterwards this does produce a really accurate measurement though now let's talk about a difficult concept measuring into a corner this can be weird because it often requires bending your tape and reading into the bend and it's subjective because some tapes are flimsier than others and they don't all have the same Bend radius it takes a little experience but here are some tips for learning it it can often help to pin the tape before you push the bend in in other words you can pull most of the distance then use your hand or foot to trap the blade down on a Surface now it stays put while you finger crimp the blade at the base and push the tape firmly into the corner causing it to bend in tight for the reading this way pressure from your tape hand won't cause the tape to slide you've got it pinned down as for reading the corner try to imagine how the rounded tape would lie flat Envision it unfolding into the corner here's a really easy way to practice find an area with both an inside corner and an outside edge push the tape into the corner and read the distance to the edge now pull the tape from The Edge Bend into the corner and read the bend since you know what the actual measurement is you can see where it falls on on the bend and get used to reading at that point but whenever possible pulling measurements to the edge just tends to be more accurate so do that if you can okay now let's talk a little bit about marking remember that the tape has prominent measurements marked for fast layout so it's very easy to make continuous one foot marks by pulling the tape and just taking at every full line and 16 inches is a very popular measurement in construction because we tend to frame things 16 inches on Center on a tape it's often a red mark you can quickly see it and make a tick at every 16. there's also a black diamond for every 19.2 inches which is common spacing for engineered joists but the point is all of these intervals end up breaking neatly on the eight foot Mark which is the common width of sheet goods and a lot of lumber so it's good to just think in terms of a total eight feet for a lot of quick layouts now in construction for some fast layout we may speed things up by tab scratching this is where we pull the tape put the desired measurement at our starting point and use the tab itself to make the mark you can just put a little pressure on it to scratch the surface this isn't terribly accurate and we really just do it for Speed but it is a really convenient way to make a lot of fast rough marks especially when you just hop from Mark to Mark another version of this is the hold and Scribe here you want to leave a long score line so you pinch your tape at your cut width butt your finger to an edge then press the tab in the field and draw a long Mark or you can even pin your pencil point to the end of the tab and make a long pencil line this is very effective quick marking and of course the trick that everybody loves you can even draw circles with a tape measure the tab has a little slot in it this is for hooking onto nail heads and pulling so if you know the half diameter of your desired Circle you can brace your pencil Point here swing your tape in an arc and Scribe a circle it's accurate to about a quarter inch and it's a great way to produce Orcs and semicircles quickly and finally if your tape gets Rusty or frail throw it away and get a new one these things are way too important to mess around with all accuracy starts here anyways those are my tape measure Basics what did you think of the video got anything to add let me hear about it down in the comments also I'll link some various tape measures down below as well as some marking tools so feel free to check those links out if you're interested as always thanks for watching be sure to check back soon for more videos coming up and please consider subscribing and hitting that Bell button to turn on notifications that way you'll know the men when we post something I'm Ethan James with the honest Carpenter I'll see you next time [Music] thank you

Channel: The Honest Carpenter

Views: 724,579

Keywords: tape measure, measuring tape, how to use a tape measure, tape measure tricks, reading a tape measure, how to read a tape measure, tape measure reading, tape measure tips, use tape measure, tape measure tips and tricks, easy way to read a tape measure, measuring tape tricks, how to read a tape measure in inches, best tape measure, reading a tape measure in 16ths, tape measure basics, tape measure for beginners, the honest carpenter

Id: st4YFCClbhg

Length: 12min 58sec (778 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 15 2023