"Tenths of feet" tape measure

strantor

strantor

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I have this tape measure that I inherited from my late grandfather's estate when I was a child. It has moved around from place to place in my shop for years and I've always known it was "off" so I didn't use it. I just assumed it was defective (improperly printed) or else it was meant for measuring circumference or some other oddball singular purpose but I never sat down to really figure it out until just now. The answer is quite simple; it doesn't measure inches. It measures feet, in graduations of 10. Instead of 12 inches between each foot, there are 10. Beside another tape measure the feet line up but not the inches.

I would like to know a bit more about this tape measure as I've never seen another like it. Seems it could be a lot easier to measure things like 10.55ft instead of 10ft + 6 & 35/64ths in. My grandfather was an aircraft mechanic as well as a foreman in a cement plant and the owner of a muffler shop (not all 3 at once). Is this type of tool a hallmark of any of those trades? He also did hobby carpentry.

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It is an Engineers scale tape measure.
 
Yep, engineer's scale. Mostly used for grading and layouts from surveyed points. Also scales neatly. It's the closest thing Americans have to a metric distance unit!
 
Tenths of an INCH were used in aircraft work, I think the other responders are correct, tenths of a foot are used in field engineering
 
I had one of them too........builders ,I would guess ,by the tape length and windup handle....................Unfortunately ,I didnt realize mine was 1/10 ft and not inches,and had a massive stuffup with a layout using it.......Consequently I gave it to the kids to play with,before it cost me any more money
 
strantor said:
I have this tape measure that I inherited from my late grandfather's estate when I was a child. It has moved around from place to place in my shop for years and I've always known it was "off" so I didn't use it. I just assumed it was defective (improperly printed) or else it was meant for measuring circumference or some other oddball singular purpose but I never sat down to really figure it out until just now. The answer is quite simple; it doesn't measure inches. It measures feet, in graduations of 10. Instead of 12 inches between each foot, there are 10. Beside another tape measure the feet line up but not the inches.

I would like to know a bit more about this tape measure as I've never seen another like it. Seems it could be a lot easier to measure things like 10.55ft instead of 10ft + 6 & 35/64ths in. My grandfather was an aircraft mechanic as well as a foreman in a cement plant and the owner of a muffler shop (not all 3 at once). Is this type of tool a hallmark of any of those trades? He also did hobby carpentry.
Click to expand...
That's quite common on a steel rule, you gotta watch out or mistakes will happen.
 
I once took a surveying course "just for fun". The "classic" example of tenths/hundredths of a foot is on the face of the iconic surveyor's rod (aka grade rod or leveling rod) for vertical measurement. We also used steel tapes with similar divisions for horizontal distances. Somewhere in the shop I have a 100 foot cloth tape calibrated in 1/100 foot on one side, inches and eighths on the other.
https://www.engineersupply.com/grade-rods.aspx

... and then, there's another style of "engineer's scale" - the one draftsmen used to use, a triangular foot-long ruler that divided inches into 10, 20, 30, and 50 parts. Or similarly, a 12 foot Stanley tape measure you can still get from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00002X2G...colid=23GNAONNVCPS&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
 
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pontiac428 said:
Yep, engineer's scale. Mostly used for grading and layouts from surveyed points. Also scales neatly. It's the closest thing Americans have to a metric distance unit!
Click to expand...

Right on, pontiac428. Scaling is very important in Surveying measurements, that's why they use 10ths of feet. Contract documents for projects are often scaled to determine sizes and distances, even today. Imagine trying to scale a drawing using feet and inches! It can be tricky enough using CAD, but can't imagine doing it by hand!
 
I have several of these tape measures with cloth instead of steel. Used them in my real estate appraisal business. Much easier to figure the square footage of a house using tenths of a foot instead of feet and inches. I still keep one in the car. Old habits die hard I guess.
 
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