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Old foreman told me to stop measuring twice and start checking my zero
Back in 2018 I was working on a set of steel beams for a warehouse in Portland. Kept coming up short by a quarter inch on every piece. My foreman watched me for about ten minutes and said 'check your tape hook, kid.' The hook had bent out from years of abuse and was throwing everything off by that quarter inch. Now I check my tape's zero before every single job, especially on older tools. Anyone else got a quick fix that saved them hours of rework?
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roberts9518d agoTop Commenter
Oh man, that reminds me of my buddy Dave who builds decks! He spent a whole afternoon cutting railing posts and they were all coming out like a half inch too long. He re-measured like five times, recut a couple, still off. Turns out his helper had swapped the tape measure with a different one from the truck and didn't tell him that one had a loose rivet on the hook. So every time he extended it, the hook would slide a little and mess up his measurement. Dave said he wanted to throw the whole tape measure in the river but instead he just taped a little piece of electrical tape over the rivet to hold it still. Works fine now as long as he checks it first thing.
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hannah_perry18d ago
Yeah man, @roberts95 that loose hook thing is real. I had a similar issue a few years back framing a roof. Kept getting weird measurements on the rafters, like a consistent 1/8th inch off. Spent way too long checking my cuts before I realized the tape's zero was gone - the hook had a bit of play from wear. I just took a file and filed the end of the tape flat so the hook sat square again. Took like two minutes and fixed the whole problem. That old foreman who told you to check your zero was right. It's such a simple thing but it saves you from chasing your tail for hours.
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