Irwin’s 25′ Strait-Line tape measure features a pencil-less, quick-marking tip. Simply measure out your distance, press the bottom of the tape against your material, and mark your line. I wouldn’t recommend using this for precision work, but for rough marks I’d use it all day long.
When you need to measure the diameter of a hole or the width of a slot, reach for a taper gauge. Named for their tapered shape, taper gauges measure hole and slot sizes quickly and accurately. With the Starrett No. 267 taper gauge, you can measure hole and slot sizes from 1/16″ to 1-1/16″, to the nearest 1/64″.
Made from spring-tempered steel and measuring 1″ wide by 5-1/4″ long, the gauge features four different leafs for measuring progressively larger dimensions. Look to pay between $90 and $110.
Taper Gauge [Starrett]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon(B0006J4DSK) [What’s This?]
Reading a tape measure upside-down is a good way to make errors, so FastCap makes a tape measure in their ProCarpenter line that reads both left-to-right and right-to-left — you don’t have to twist your neck to read the scale.
Who says form has to follow function? Why can’t it lead once in a while? Flaunt your style with one of these beautiful tape measures from Dixon Tape and Rule. Choose a tape measure covered in a fancy veneer or made from a solid block of exotic, domestic, or imported wood. They even hand-paint some models or decorate ‘em with inlays.
Ebisu Diamond’s card level isn’t so much a “wow that’s so cool!” tool — it’s more of a “that’s pretty neat” tool. The 6mm thick, credit-card size level incorporates level, plumb, 60° and 45° slope, and 1 and 2 percent grade measurements into a single bubble vial. ED makes the card level from precisely machined acrylic, so it’s nearly indestructible.
Made in Japan and seemingly only available in Europe, if you can find the Ebisu Diamond card level it’ll cost you around 9 Euros. At today’s conversion rate, that’s a little over $14 — of course, you’ll have to factor in shipping across the big pond, if you happen to be in North America.
Card Level [Dieter Schmid]
Card Level [Dick Fine Tools]
Taking measurements down can be a task unto itself — it requires you to keep track of your tape measure, paper, and pencil. That might be a lot for some Toolmongers, so finally the tool market has delivered an aid for you. The WristWriter can hold your tape measure, paper, and pencil, all on one weighed-down wrist.
Although plumb bobs have been in use for thousands of years, Lee Valley thinks they can make this old standard a little better with their patented Veritas Flat Bob. Is it any better, or are they blowing smoke up your ass to try to get you to part with some more of your hard-earned money? Read on, and decide for yourself.
When you first look at the flat bob, it doesn’t look like most plumb bobs. Lee Valley manufactures the 3-3/4″ plummet from precision-molded nylon and adds a brass weight, tip, and string holder. They designed the flat weight to slide against a wall instead of rolling like a normal plummet, so it stabilizes quickly. The marking slot in the plummet serves two purposes: it’s directly in line with the string, so your lines are dead-on plumb; and the cord windlass snaps into the slot for storage.
The flat bob comes with a protective tip cover, 8′ of braided nylon cord wrapped around the windlass, and the 70g plummet. If you inhaled the smoke, you’ll be happy to find out it only runs $19 at Lee Valley.
During our time with Stanley today we found out they’ve added a small, 12’, high-visibility tape to their lineup. We were actually pretty stoked to see it — our choices of quality tiny tapes in the 12-foot range were pretty slim.
Picking it up, it was clear that Stanley had a good day in the design room when this was being drawn up. It’s super comfortable, super small, and super easy on the wallet at around $2.50. All the guys who would rather not lug around a boat anchor will soon be able to jump on this at the local big box.
Stanley Hand Tools [Stanley]
When you need to know the rise and run now, don’t calculate it — directly measure it quickly with Tajima’s slant tool. Their slant tool allows you to quickly measure, verify, or copy surface angle and pitch.
You adjust the easy-to-read angle scale with a large thumb screw on the handle. When the bubble vial reads level, you’re at the set angle. The angle scale ranges from 0 to 130° in 2° increments. The rise scale ranges from 0 to 0.8 in 0.05 increments, and above 0.8 it reads in fixed increments up to 2.0.
Measuring miters got you on edge? This miter hook from Veritas can take the pain out of accurately measuring mitered trim. It hooks onto the miter and provides a reference point exactly even with the miter on either the inside or outside corners.
You’ve heard the expression “measure twice, cut once.” Ages ago, woodworkers found transferring all their project’s important measurements to a story stick helped them avoid measurement errors. When it came time to mark project pieces, they just placed the story stick next to the piece and transferred the mark. Today, Woodpeckers makes a device that improves upon the story stick in several ways.
Unlike just any old piece of wood from your shop, the 36″ story stick’s aluminum track runs straight as a rail. On one side they engrave a scale with 1/32” increments in both directions, so you can use it either left-to-right or right-to-left. On the other side they engrave a centering scale. Four steel tabs slide along the track and lock into place with the turn of a knob, with both a pencil slot and a V-notch in each tab to make transferring measurements dead-on accurate.
Who in their right mind is going to take a $100+ plumb bob to the job site when they can bring a perfectly serviceable $10 one? If you showed up on the job site with the PB-9 plumb bob from Bridge City Tool Works, you’d either get laughed off the lot, or all work would stop while everyone came over to admire this beautiful tool.
The Diametape by Pyramid has probably become the perfect go-to tool for anyone who measures o-rings and rubber belts to any level of precision. For the average Toolmonger it just looks like an incredibly simple and useful tool — the kind that makes you want to measure o-rings and rubber belts.
Although setting tile can be fun, we sometimes get frustrated trying to space ‘em just right. Experienced setters can rely on a practiced eye or thousands of those little spacers. For the rest of us, Prazi manufactures the Set & Go.
You can adjust the Set & Go to work with tiles measuring 8″ to 16″. The Set & Go holds four spacers in precise position, so you just set tiles on all four sides of it, then move the Set & Go to the next row, and continue setting tiles — no small spacers to set and pick up.
By sight, most people can’t tell a 20° angle from a 22-1/2° angle or even a 25° angle, but guessing incorrectly can lead to a tool that no longer cuts well. With a bevel gauge like this one from Richard Kell, you can make sure you’re honing your blade at the correct angle. Don’t confuse this bevel gauge with the adjustable or sliding bevel gauge — only this bevel gauge takes the guesswork out of checking angles.
If you’ve ever had to lay a curve over and over again, you probably made a template from whatever you had around — a piece of cardboard, a piece of paper, maybe a moldable French curve. Woodcraft recently added a flexible template to their inventory. It’s cool because you can mimic a curve up to 37″ long. Even cooler: You can lock it to keep that curve no matter how many times you transfer it.
The locking template sells for $40, and Woodcraft appears to be the only place offering it.
Curve Template [Woodcraft]
Have you ever tried to do a level and measured layout for hanging a picture or the hardware for a towel rack? You can do it with a box level and a tape, but it can be difficult. If you have to do multiple layouts over and over, it can be downright frustrating. Empire Level makes a unique straightedge that can be a big help in this type of situation.
The Bubble Stick incorporates a built-in level and plumb vial into a four-foot, plastic straightedge. Because it’s not as bulky as a box level and the measurements are on tapered edges, you can see your pencil tip and the gradations easily. The edges aren’t hard or sharp, so it won’t mar painted or wallpapered surfaces.
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