Randy Meijer
03-07-2005, 7:27 AM
I watch "THIS OLD HOUSE" fairly regularly and old Tom Silva does something that puzzles me. Not sure if he knows something that I don't or whether it's just his years of experience???
When taking an inside measurement...like a window opening...Tom will stick the end of his tape in one corner, lay it flat on the sill, "break" the tape at a 90° angle, roll the tape into the other corner and call off a dimension to the last 16th??? Is he estimating the measurement or getting close enough for government work since the dimension doesn't need to be exact or using some unknown(to me) technique to read the bend of the tape accurately?? This has puzzled me for many moons and I figured that if anyone knew the answer, short of Tom himself, it would be someone here. My thanks in advance for any comments.
And on another subject, I just saw that Lee Valley sells a tape measure that reads "backwards". The tape reads from right to left instead of the more normal way. Not real crazy about paying $6 bucks shipping on a $10 item si I checked a couple of local places today and no one had one. Anyone ever seen these things at a local retail store??? If so, where?? Thanks.
When taking an inside measurement...like a window opening...Tom will stick the end of his tape in one corner, lay it flat on the sill, "break" the tape at a 90° angle, roll the tape into the other corner and call off a dimension to the last 16th??? Is he estimating the measurement or getting close enough for government work since the dimension doesn't need to be exact or using some unknown(to me) technique to read the bend of the tape accurately?? This has puzzled me for many moons and I figured that if anyone knew the answer, short of Tom himself, it would be someone here. My thanks in advance for any comments.
And on another subject, I just saw that Lee Valley sells a tape measure that reads "backwards". The tape reads from right to left instead of the more normal way. Not real crazy about paying $6 bucks shipping on a $10 item si I checked a couple of local places today and no one had one. Anyone ever seen these things at a local retail store??? If so, where?? Thanks.