A tape measure or measuring tape is a versatile type of ruler. It consists of a ribbon of cloth, plastic material, or metal with linear-measure markings, frequently in each imperial and metric units. Surveyors use tape measures in lengths on the order of hectometres. It is a handy, common measuring device.
Until you wish to cut a board to 4'11-3/8" and pick up the tape measure and understand that there is no clear marking for 11-3/8"! Now you have to realize how to read a tape measure.It's actually a lot simpler than it looks.
The first point we require to clarify is the symbols used in most woodworking plans. The mark ' (apostrophe) represents feet. The " (quote) mark represents in.. So a plan calling for a board to become cut to 4' 11-3/8" is asking for "four feet eleven and 3 eighths inches". Because this could be perplexing most plans will phone out this measurement only in in.; in this situation 59-3/8" or "fifty nine and 3 eighths inches".
Now that we've covered the fundamentals it is back to understanding all of individuals small marks on the tape measure. A regular tape measure (or ruler) in the United States is separated up into feet and in.. Every foot is separated into 12 in.. The issue starts with the subdivision from the in.. In each inch you will find a number of lines of various length. The longer the length of these lines, the larger the unit of measurement.
On the typical ruler the basic (smallest) unit of measurement is 1/16". If you count the range between two inch marks (1 inch) you'll discover sixteen lines. This really is because an inch is 16/16th of an inch long. Because we like to express fractional numbers in the largest unit feasible we phone it 1 inch. So it follows that if you have 8 lines, or 8/16" you have a half-inch or ?". And likewise, if you have 4 small lines, or 4/16" you have a quarter inch and thus on.