Tape Measure Tips and Tricks - What is that marking?

welcome back guys it's the tightwad and today we're gonna learn about take measures or tape measures or measuring tapes or measuring tapes whatever you want to call them there are lots of different things that these guys will do that you probably don't know about so let's get started the first tip I'm going to share with you is well the tip of the tape measure and several of our tips today are actually related to this tip but the first one today is I'm going to talk about why there is slack in the tip so you can see this is held on by three rivets on this one three rivets on this one and two rivets on this one and they're all Wiggly and that's done by design the reason is if you're butting up against something it pushes the tip in so it gives you an accurate measurement but if you're pulling against something the width of this is going to throw your measurements off so it's gonna release just a little bit to still give you an accurate measurement and going down the tape I need some props for the next tip so I'm gonna hammer a nail into this board since we're already talking about the tip of the tape measure we're gonna move to talk about what this notch is right here so every tape measure has a little hole in the front the sole purpose of that hole is to be able to easily hook it on a nail and pull the tape long distances I know you can hook it on the edge of most materials but sometimes there's a bevel on the edge of the material or you'll walk about 15 feet away and your tape measure tends to slip off of it but if you hook it on a nail head it's not gonna pull off no matter how hard you pull it's a nice sturdy way to hold your tape measure when measuring long distances another cool thing I want to point out about measuring tapes is that yes it does say the length of the tape right here on the side but sometimes that gets worn off or covered up with mud or paint but the tape itself also says the full length of the tape so you see right here it says 25 feet on this tape it says 16 feet and on this one it is another 25-foot tape so all tape measure brands that I found show within the first three inches the full length of the tape I now want to talk about some of the markings that are common on measuring tapes and I have a Stanley here and a Dewalt here and they have very similar markings the DeWalt having a few more but we're going to start with this notice that every foot here here here and here has a nice large arrow on it to indicate that you're at the every 12 inch increment so this is the two-foot mark at 24 inches but there are also red numbers here these red numbers start over at every foot so after I get to one foot it continues on 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 to 24 but it also starts back over at 1 so for people who are have more difficulty reading a tape measure on now know that this mark right here is 1 foot and 7 inches and the same applies if you go up to 3 feet so here I have the 3 foot mark and I can go to 3 feet 7 inches and then I can add 1/2 1/4 1/8 3/16 the next thing you might notice that there are numbers with a red rectangle on them on both tapes and these are our 16 inch centers so whenever building walls in most states the code is 16 inch on center for walls meaning if you start with your first stud here your next stud will be at 16 inches your next stud will be at 32 inches and your next stud will be at 48 inches not only are the numbers red but there are also arrows pointing exactly to where it would go one of the lesser common markings on measuring tapes are the black diamonds and notice this just beyond 19 inches it's actually 19 point 2 inches and then it's found again at 38 point 4 inches and again at 56 point 6 or 57 point 6 inches and so on every nineteen point two inches down the tape the reason for this is that nineteen point two in in the united states is where floor joists go so while studs are 16 inches on center floor joist or 19.2 on sinner it sounds like a very odd measurement but there's a reason for it the most commonly found boards in the United States are 8 foot long timbers so if you divide 8 feet which is 144 inches by 5 you get 19.2 this Dewalt tape is my favorite measuring tape to use currently and it's because it goes all the way down to the eighth of an inch to learn how to read a tape measure you first need to know that the inch marks go all the way across and then there are 16 lines between each inch mark so this is one 16 - 16 3 16 four sixteenths and so on there are also a little bit longer lines that are 1/8 inch line so it's one eight two eight three eight four eight five eight six dates and so on and then you go up to the next longer line and you have quarters so 1/4 2/4 3/4 four quarters and then the longest lines being the half-inch marks it's very easy to do math using a tape measure and it's super easy to get half of a fraction so for instance right here we have seven eighths to get half of seven eighths we double the denominator which is 8 and make it 16 so then we're going to look for 7/16 so 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 so this is 7/16 which is exactly half of seven eight the same applies to 1/2 so if you to make it simple you could do 1 half double the denominator 2 4 so it's going to be 1/4 is exactly 1/2 of 1/2 I want to show you another trick you can do with a measuring tape if I measure this board I can see that it is actually 11 and eleven sixteenths and to find half of eleven and eleven sixteenths might be difficult so if I want to find the center point of this board I can put my tape at an angle and measure to the 12 inch mark here so I'm tied on this end I'm pulled down to 12 inches here and I'm gonna make a mark right here at six inches because I know that's half a 12 that's easy so now I can come back and I can measure to there and it's 5 and 7/8 this way and 5 and 7/8 this way so I've found the center of point of my board very easily another thing I want to make sure you you know about is that you always should measure when marking a board with a V the reason why you marked with a V instead of a line like this is because when I walk away from the board and come back to it I know exactly what point I'm measured to to get to the B if I look at this line I don't know if I'm measured to this end of the line or this end of the line but would it be I always know that this side of the line is my measurement one more quick measuring tip I wanted to show you if your rough cutting lumber and you just need to break down a large piece of sheet goods or get a rough measurement here there's an easy way to fought to make a line down the board so I'm gonna actually do this one at two inches two and a half inches down the center of this board so I'm gonna pull my tape to the edge tight here I'm gonna put my pencil get some let out right at two and a half and then I'm gonna slide my tape measure down the board and it's going to give me a nice straight line that is exactly two and a half inches from the side of the board again if I was doing fine carpentry I wouldn't use this but if I needed to close enough line this is a great way to measure without pulling out a level and clamping it down to the board and getting a nice straight edge going there another tip using a measuring tape is to use it to do division so you can easily find the half of something by going to the measurement you're looking at so if you're good in math you might know exactly what half of 43 is but if you fold it in half and look in the elbow of the tape down there we see that it is actually 21 and a half right there in the center so again if I had 38 or nine and a half I could look down here and I can it's a little bit less than 20 so it's 20 or 19 and 3/4 I wanted to show you one more application of using the tape measure to do math and say I needed to go forty four and a half and I did needed to subtract five and a quarter from that again if I'm not getting math I could line up the tip of my tape measure right at forty four and a half and then I could take my five and a quarter down here and I could see that my total would be thirty nine and one quarter so you just go with the length you need to remove here and then match it up at the other side one of the things my brother and my dad and I used to do in the hardware store where I grew up that I grew up working in was play with measuring tapes and one of the games would play was to see how much stand out a tape pad so how far could you roll out your tape before it broke and fell down and when we say break we don't mean it actually breaks but meaning it pops like that so this first tape that we were looking at today popped out at about 5 feet and 8 inches and why stand out important on tape if I'm trying to measure an 8 foot board and I'm standing on one end of it and I want to just reach my tape down to the other end and save me 3 or 4 steps it would be nice if my tape would reach out eight feet before breaking over this next one is my Stanley level lock 25 foot and it pops out at about 7 feet now I'm going to show you my favorite tape that I use or grab the most frequently I either grab the 25 foot version or the 16 foot version of this I actually grab the 16 foot version more often because it is a little bit lighter and I'm currently at 8 feet and it's still going and I'm at 9 feet and I'm at 10 feet so this particular tape doesn't break until about 10 feet and I can feel it's actually made of better material but I did buy these on sale and I'm a tightwad so I got these on a great sale as a 2-pack at Christmas a couple of years ago if I was going to buy one for the regular store price I'd probably go with the stanley fat Mattox or one of the higher-end Stanley brands instead of buying the DeWalt because these do get a little bit expensive at times but that's a good way to quickly see the quality of the tape measure when you're in a store is you can quickly pop it out and see how far it stands out and it's a lot of fun too I hope at least one of these things is not something you already knew about tape measures if you have any additional tips put them in the comment section and I'll be sure to record a follow-up video and give you credit in it leave any questions you might have in the comment section and I'll get back to you as soon as possible click that subscribe button in the center of the screen right now and then turn on the notification so you'll know the next time I post a DIY style video if you want to become part of tightwad nation be sure to follow me on instagram at tightwad DIY I tend to post some behind the scenes footage and also some of the videos before I even post them on YouTube I hope you guys have a great day

Channel: TightWadDIY

Views: 2,772,384

Keywords: tape, measure, measuring, measuring tape, tape measure, tape mesure, mesure, ruler, how to, diy, best, markings, whats that, tightwad, tightwaddiy, tightwadrepairs, twdiy

Id: 2x6b38R85i8

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 17 2020