Welcom to Teach Skills You Learn - Master Reading a Tape Measure

In this episode of Teach Skills You Learn, we're diving into a tool you've definately seen but might not totally understand - yep, the trusty tape measure! Whether you're hanging shelves, building a bench, or just trying to ge accurate with your DIY projects, reading a tape measure is a fundamental skill that makes all the difference. I'lll break down teh lines, fraction, and little tricks that'll have you measuring like a pro in no time. Grab your tape, and let's get started!

You can find this episode on YouTube :

https://youtu.be/JgNEhmmmgUg

You can also check out my channel on YouTube:

UCseHEDSYd7C9QUk11718W0g 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the podcast. This is Teach Skills You Learn. I am your host, Bethany Skiller. And I believe it was the first episode. I promised to teach you how to read a tape measure. So here we are. The moment of truth, it's here. What I have here on this handy dandy little piece of paper is a blown-up picture, what a tape measure looks like from inch to inch. Okay. So what I mean is this line to this line is going to represent an inch. Right? You can insert zero, you can insert one, two, it doesn't matter. From this point to this point, it is going to represent a full inch. To read a tape measure, it took me um a little bit of time prior to working in this cabinet shop. I never uh learned how to read a tape measure. So I was that one individual that would sit there and count. One, two, three. Okay, this okay, three sixteenths. Or um, I'd be like, one, two, three, four sixteenths, uh, a quarter, that's one fourth. It took me some time, but it didn't take me long, all right? Because you figure out how to be efficient, because you're not gonna be that guy, gal, in the cabin shop, and they're waiting for your size, and you're just like, okay, 23 and uh one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven, sixteenths. They're not gonna wait for you like that. So you really do figure out how to do it quickly and efficiently, and I'm hoping I can share that knowledge with you today. If it just takes you time to you know take a tape measure and and and and and read it out, go around your house, start measuring things, and and and start practicing that way, you can do that. Who's gonna judge you like that? No one's gonna care. Let's begin. I don't know if I really want to get into read you know fractions, reductions, but that's kind of what this is going to be. A little uh fraction reduction 101. So what we have is everything is over a sixteenth of an inch. So if I said that this was one sixteenth, a sixteenth, and as you can see now, we're getting into like different sizes of hash marks. These little small ones are always going to be a sixteenth, these little small ones, they don't redo, it's just gonna be over a sixteenth. So if you think of it this way, these little small hash marks will be over a sixteenth, but what if I do this? Okay, so over a sixteenth, over a sixteenth, over a sixteenth, okay. Alright, and they will always be an odd number. And the reason why I say this is because if you have an even number, what can you do to an even number? You can always divide it by two, you can always reduce that. So these little hash marks can't be reduced, so they're always going to be an odd number. So if I count up and I have one, so guess what? This is gonna be three, this is gonna be five, seven, this is gonna be nine, this is gonna be eleven, thirteen, fifteen, sixteenths, and a full sixteen sixteenths make a whole. Okay, are you are you I hope you're with me still? These little marks here, they're the next biggest size right here. These are gonna be your eighths, okay? They're your eighths. So these are eighth over an eighth, over an eighth, over an eighth, if I said everything's gonna be read out as an odd number on the top, right? Whether it's an odd number over a sixteenth, now this is gonna be an odd number over an eighth, right? So if I say that this is one sixteenth or a sixteenth, and then I say that this is um two sixteenths, which would be what one eighth, right? This mark right here is going to be a three. It's an odd, remember? This one right here is going to be a five eighths. Okay, and this one right here, seven eighths. Do you there's a little pattern kind of developing our quarter marks, right? You're gonna understand that this is one quarter. Half, right? Because this is half of the inch, so we can say one half. And what would this be? If I'm going from here to here, that would be three-quarter. That's how it works. That is your tape measure. I hope that helped. I appreciate you coming back. Take your time to take a tape measure and just start measuring things around the house, and you'll see that's just basically quick how to read a tip measure. This is probably the fastest way I could teach you. It's not something that you're going to need every day, so you may not care that you count each tick mark. But you don't have to count the tick marks now because this is the fastest way I could teach anybody. I'm going to encourage you to do something kind or sweet to somebody, a stranger, a family member, your children, your cousins, uncles, brothers, whatever. Just do something kind to somebody because I believe that one single act of service from the bottom of your hearts just makes you feel better. And when you feel better, um people around you feel better. That's all I have for you. Um, I don't have much other. Enjoy yourself, enjoy the day here right now. It is beautiful and sunny. The summer is here. Thank you for coming back. We'll see you next time.