Originally Posted by
Charles Guest
It's far more useful to have a gaggle of marking gauges than it is a gaggle of rules and tapes. Marking gauges, story sticks, and marking identical workpieces from the first one you get out. Put away the tapes and rules and quit measuring everything to a number the entire duration of a project.
Originally Posted by
Edward Weber
Measure as little as possible using as few as possible rules.
The more you measure and mark, the more chances there are to introduce error.
Tapes and rules these days are much better than in the past but they aren't perfect and errors do occur. There usually isn't a problem switching between measuring devices but I try not to do it, it's just the method I use.
I'm also in the camp of using gauges, story sticks, templates and so on.
+2 on those!
I always wanted to like folding rules, but I never could. They were just more clumsy and time consuming compared to tape measures.
One of my favorite things about folding rules is two of the hinges lifts the rule off the work making it easy to slip a try square underneath for marking. As mentioned earlier, my oldest folding rule has well oiled hinges and can be picked up in the center and with a quick motion of the wrist be folded and set aside. Likewise, when needed, it can be picked up and with another motion of the wrist be fully open.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)