What's your favorite tape measure?

[peter gagliardi]

I have never seen the Fisco or Sola ones here in the States. I have also never seen here the rating system for the accuracy of the tape like what appears to be standard in England, or Europe for that matter.
In the shop, the tape measure plays second fiddle to the digital fences on the Martin saw.
As a colleage of mine said to me once, "one of your instruments needs to be "the boss" as far as measuring goes. Are you going to trust a $10-15.00 tape measure, or the digital readouts on the $30-50k saw?"

[Cary Falk]

Confucius says " He with many tapes never knows what measurement it is."

[lowell holmes]

A borrowed one.

Just kidding.

[Chris Parks]

Chris where did you purchase your BMI rules?

Jordan, I bought my 2 metre fully metric versions locally but my three metre imperial/metric version came off Ebay out of Hong Kong as that was not sold locally. I found this http://www.bmitools.com/conttrade/sm...vels_tapes.htm but they don't show the Quicky which I find strange and it might pay to contact them and ask the question. Ebay Germany would definitely be a candidate as would Ebay UK. I like the concept of the Festool type but I have too many tapes none of which I use in the workshop at all, I bought a few Hultafor tapes simply for their ability to measure internally very accurately and the ability to measure a cylinder very accurately. From now on I will only buy European made tapes as they have a certified accuracy and that is stated on the tape.

I have to admit to being a convert to BMI as when I bought the first one I thought it would sit in the drawer and gather dust but on the contrary I use it all the time for quick confirmation measurement, finding a length of timber to cut etc all the time. I simply like the way the Europeans have of printing easy to see crisp markings on the tape and it makes them a pleasure to use. If I am cutting and measuring for a project them I always use a steel rule as the engravings can be used to set dividers, trammel bars etc, mortise gauges etc way more precisely than the eye can do.

I may as well add something here that a lot of people most probably do not realise and that is if we measure something then transfer that measurement to a fence on a machine have we transferred the measurement or using the fence tape just put the same number in? I have about six fences in my workshop on various machines and they were accurate to the fence tape but they all cut slightly differently. I had made a standard measure that was machined and measured to a vernier which is as accurate as we as WW's are likely to need and set all my fences to that so they all cut the same no matter which fence is used.

[Peter Kelly]

The tape on that BMI Vario is black increments on dark gray so totally difficult to read. I think the Festool is the same thing but black / white tape.

[stan shields]

I found a website in the U.S. that sells the Frisco tapes:
https://www.needthattool.com/bt12e.aspx
Interesting that the major brands like Stanley don't talk about accuracy. I ordered a BT16E, will report back when it arrives, looks interesting.

[Chris Stephenson]

The closest one to me or that I can find, but i'm slowly replacing them all with Fastcaps. Love the flat back for marking out measurements

[stan shields]

Amazon has the Fisco big T tapes, just got the 16 footer, it's excellent.
https://www.amazon.com/BT12E-Fisco-T...o+tape+measure

[Peter Kelly]

Ordered a Fisco 16' yesterday! Thanx for the recommendations.