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The hardware store guy in St. Louis showed me I was measuring wrong for 15 years
I was at Ace Hardware on Grand picking up some deck screws last Tuesday, and this older guy named Mike asked what I was building. I told him a simple planter box, and he looked at my tape measure and said 'you know you're reading the 32nd marks wrong, right?' I had been counting from the wrong edge for years, thinking I was fine. He spent 5 minutes showing me how to read it proper, and now my cuts actually fit tight. Has anyone else had a basic tool skill they somehow messed up for way too long?
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victorcoleman1mo ago
Man, I read that tape measure trick in some old woodworking blog and it blew my mind.
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jake_martin161mo ago
And then you realize you can use the little hook slot to draw perfect circles by sticking a pencil through it, right? @victorcoleman I tried that last week and it saved me so much time marking out a radius on some plywood. The way the tab hooks over the edge for a consistent starting point is honestly the real game changer. I've been using that trick for marking out studs too, works way better than guessing.
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