You can buy these with a calibration certificate for like $70, but I skipped the cert. Should be the same quality, cost me $16. I chose the version with the superior units of measurement.

    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      171·
      9 days ago

      You joke but there are actually architects scale tape measures out there that have tenths of a foot and tenths and hundreths of an inch rather than the normal fractional scale.

      Be warned if one is around, you might be about to have a really bad day.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
          7·
          9 days ago

          The triangular ones are sales used for drawing and measuring plans in standard scales. There are engineering scales and Architectural scales, which are very different.

          The Engineering scales use scales of 1:10, 1:20, 1:30, 1:40, 1:50, and 1:60 scales, and are usually used for drawing at a scale like “1 inch= 50 feet”. They’re generally used for civil engineering, so the plans show a larger area.

          Architectural scales have scales based on fractional inches and are weirder, with units that are 1.5", 1", 1/2", 3/8", 3/16", and 1/8". They’re used for larger scale drawing like buildings rather than the site-level drawing from the engineers.

          • 843563115848@lemmy.zip
            4·
            9 days ago

            Seriously, they are very useful if you are doing something relevant like drawing a scale plan for a house addition you want to build and have to submit a set of blueprints to the building inspector. Done that a few times. After the nerd cred, you pick up the framing hammer and start the real work.

            • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.orgEnglish
              2·
              9 days ago

              In metric it’s easy to divide by 20 or 50. Still, the drawing board my father used as a civil engineer only had double-sided ones (1:1 and 1:50).