Mark Straight OnĪnother mistake I see people often make when measuring is not getting to eye level when marking their measurement and marking straight on. The tape measure needs to remain straight to get an accurate measurement. It’s easy when you’re quickly measuring to angle your tape measure or to slant it towards an item if measuring vertically. This might sound like basic advice, but it’s important. Knowing how to read a tape measure means nothing if you use your measuring tape inaccurately! Measure Straight Now that you know the basics about how to read a tape measure, it’s just as important that you know a few key skills to make sure you are getting accurate measurements. If you aren’t actively working on a jobsite, you’ll probably never need this one. This is common spacing for engineered joists. You might see a black diamond at 19.2” on your tape measure, and then every 19.2” after that. Instead of needing to do a lot of calculations and measuring between these common framing tasks, the tape measure acts as a guide of where things should go. This is the common spacing for studs and roof joists. Well depending on your tape measure, they might not be red, but they will look different than the rest. You might notice that you 16, 32, 48, and every number that’s a multiple of 16 on your tape measure is red. Chances are, they aren’t something you’ll need to use often (or maybe ever), especially if you are focusing on DIY woodworking projects. If you’re wondering what the red numbers or black diamonds mean on a tape measure, you’re about to find out. To convert those measurements to something you can read on measuring tape, refer to the chart below. Sometimes project plans will give you measurements in decimals rather than fractions. 2/32” will be right in between those two marks. If you have a measuring tape that measures to the 16ths, you will find 1/16th and 2/16ths on your tape measure. If you have a measuring tape that measures down to the 32nds, you will simply count three lines after the whole number. This is much less common than a standard measuring tape that has marks every 1/16”. This one is a bit trickier because you’ll only have a dedicated mark for 3/32” if you have a tape measure that has marks for every 1/32”. Or you can count 5 lines that aren’t the shortest lines. ⅝” on the other hand is going to be the 10th mark after the whole number. What is 5/16” on a tape measure?ĥ/16” is going to be the 5th mark after a whole number. Now that we know what the lines on the tape measure mean, let’s put our skills to the test. FastCap Easy Read Tape Measure – this one labels every mark and has labels on both sides of the tape measure.WorkPro Tape Measure – includes easy read labels and goes down to 1/32″ accuracy on one side.Lufkin Tape Measure – this is definitely the most sturdy of the options, but no labels.This post contains affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link, I earn a teeny-tiny commission, but it won’t cost you a penny more)! Click here to read our full disclosure.īelow are links to the different 4 tape measures we’ll show in the tape measure examples below. Some of the measuring tapes will actually list out what every single line means, but most will just label every ⅛”. If you’re not into the idea of math or want something a little quicker to read, you can grab an easy read measuring tape that actually lists out what the line means. Who knew understanding fractions would actually come in handy! If you don’t want to keep switching between different denominations, you can simply count how many lines over your mark is (example = 10 marks over) and you’ll know that it’s 10/16” You can then simplify the fraction by dividing it by the highest common factor, in this case 2, to get ⅝”. When reading a tape measure left to right, here’s what the marks refer to in order: The lines that are between the shortest and the ¼” markers designate ⅛”. And the shortest lines mark 1/16”. The first one will be ¼” and the one on the right side of the ½” mark will be ¾”. The slightly shorter lines refer to ¼” increments. The large numbers, and the longest lines refer to an inch. Since 1/16” is most common, we’ll start there. You’ll know which one you have because your measuring tape will either have 15 small lines between each large number or it will have 31. Most tape measures will have marks that go down to a 1/16 of an inch, but there are some measuring tapes that will even measure down to the 1/32.
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