Metric measuring taps are awesome!
 

I'm a measurement nerd. I love to measure things (weather characteristics, motor/car characteristics, etc....).

A while back I happened upon a measuring tape on Amazon that had both metric and SAE scales and thought, "that's really cool. I want one!" So I did some searches to see what was available (I like Lufkin tape measures). In my searches, I saw that there are Starrett tape measures and had another "that's cool. I want one," moment. I was so excited to find that Amazon had Starrett English/Metric tape measures so I got one.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/c...00852cUSp1.jpg

It's a very nice little tape measure. What I've discovered is that it's really nice and easy to use the metric scale, but that since it's only good one one side of the tape measure that I am going to need to get an all metric (or maybe a few) tape measure.

I learned metric in school, and have remembered all of the prefixes and conversions all of this time (good memory for numbers). But it's so much easier to remember centimeters.millimeters than inches fractional inches.

When I laid out window grids I used metrics. Dividing the net opening by the number of muntins minus the total width of all muntins took seconds. Using fractions was awful.

Another tape is in inch tenths. A lot of framing squares have inches in tenths on one scale. Those are fast too for layout using division.

We use the metric system in Australia but we also use imperial. The switch happened back in the early 70s.

I use both daily. For instance, I prefer foot pounds to Newton meters.
And our tire sizes are still imperial.

FYI: Search "Metric tires Ferrari Testarossa" on Google and you may be surprised (The first Testarossa came fitted with millimetric wheels).

I'm also a Measurement Geek: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/641397-heavy-pink-american-d.html

Lol, I have a couple of metric/imp tapes but I usually prefer the all imperial one.

I feel like I first remember hearing that we were switching to metric in the 70s, but it mostly didn't happen. I learned about it in one particular school in the early-mid 80s and it stuck.

Funny, I have heard of imperial tire sizes, but I think most automotive tire sizes in the US are metric. I think the only place that we really use imperial is for truck tires, and then mostly for very large tires on pickup trucks or I think commercial trucks, trailers, and mowers also use imperial.

I use English/imperial 99.9% of the time, but I am comfortable enough in metric that I could use it if needed. Although like you said, for things like HP or torque (motor or to tighten a bolt/nut) I'd prefer hp or foot pounds/ inch pounds.

My grandfather on my mom's side of the family gave my dad a French Mabo metric tape measure as a gift.

It rode in my dad's 911 for years.

Then along comes ME, (insert dumdarse me) who drops it in a lake. My dad was pissed beyond belief. Understandably. He made me rummage through the lake with a big magnet. No luck.

In the 1980's (after an exhaustive Yellow Pages search) there was only one Mabo dealer in our town, I drove there, and this was a discontinued model. I was out of luck.

I always felt awful. When my dad died, I found one on Ebay, and tossed it in my 911. Drove around with it for months. One day while visiting his grave, I dropped it off for payback, a little late.

Looks like they are still on ebay. Funny thing is, I never even got to try out the metric part of the tape.

edit- interesting tidbit- they don't just measure on the tape, they measure from the top. Check out the pics.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/385635664626?hash=item59c9ad42f2:g:1MoAAOSwwdhkbnM m&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4INej3SpO7SWOcwT27EpN9ftoae UetK%2BqR2cDE1Itu0iqh31HgiZx7y2aKg%2BxIKEnzlmaBnrd RQWgN2ugpc0AOFHR0AOHeP0WN1sqy0aIDrwe3%2FAAqPRS0ub8 A595EwV8Hb2mxNM%2FH9s%2Fus%2BwxLZpe30fAMQ2ETL5fnIA heRm8UBw6UFxHUdGLwmYgldjljKTChPcLZ0koIIJTynKS6jQU4 dP%2FMt59CdmaAfZokf6ajudy29h1WbAixiLoLxeiNMYoq8zT9 xkmouc93%2F7zp%2FpZMKNRYeS%2BoZmkT6eN900YXX%7Ctkp% 3ABk9SR4bftcnzYg

Prob an urban legend, but back then, the Federal Dept. of Switching Over To Metric would hold a press conference a few times a year.

Govt. Employee " Okay, that sums up our conference for now. Any questions?"
Smart-Azz Reporter "Yeah, how tall are you in centimeters?"

And that was the end of those conferences. :D

Very cool story, thanks for sharing!

Also a very cool measuring tape. The level and the window to read the measurement from the top is interesting (might take a little getting used to). What I was wondering while scrolling through the pics was, "Ok, you've get the line on top to read the measurement from, does that take into account the distance to the end of the body or is the spot directly below the red line, or...?" But then I got to the last pic, and the first (guessing ~3" of tape) have no markings other than the arrow and "point of measurement." Very cool, and interesting tape measure. I may get one as a curiosity.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/WaoAA...Mn/s-l1200.jpg

Interesting, these are both pics of the same tape measure. Interesting that the markings are different on the top and bottom of the tape.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1699145097.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1699145081.jpg

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/i...be7f90c052.jpg

It looks like Stanley sold them with their name (and "Mabo") too.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1699145331.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/8zkAA...vYA/s-l400.jpg

I was not aware of the Stanley connection.
Had I known-
That could of saved my ass~! :)

Also interesting is the plum bob "stop" that etches the wood evidently. I'm wondering how that is calibrated. Unlike french cars Jeremy Clarkson could laugh at for hours, this tape measure seems pretty well thought out.


Now if I only had a 5.08x10.16 project in the works! :D

Truth be told- the sentimental value is off the charts. I have literally cried twice over this damn tape measure, and still can't remember measuring a thing with it! :)

Some basic instructions that are online. I guess the point can be used to scribe an arc of a given radius.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1699148047.jpg

Well I'll be damned! :D:D:D:D

I also forgot about that hole in the end of the tape. Wow.

I've got this on my workbench. It's one meter long, or about 39 1/4 inches, with deeply engraved hash marks.

It wasn't real cheap, but it's money well spent IMHO and I love the fact that the metric scale is at the top, thus more easily accessible.
Imperial math is hard. Metric math is easier.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1699151474.jpg

I have several metric tape measures and I love them.
Personally, I always use metric whenever I can.
If I have to have something cut at the local hardware store,
I convert it to Imperial on my computer before I go there.

Base ten vs anything else is always better for the mathematically
challenged like myself.

Unless I'm measuring something over 14 inches long (which means I don't need resolution), I exclusively use fine ruled stainless rulers. Mine are imperial one side, both 1/32 and 1/64 inch scale, and metric at 0.5mm on the other side. I use the 1/32 inch scale for most things because that's "as fine as normally needed", but I use the metric side if I need to do math (dividing things, summing lengths, etc).

A set of a few lengths from Amazon is about $10, so it's a no brainer type tool that I use DAILY.