Measuring Tape Smart Trick Everyone Must Know

The moving Hook

Have you ever wondered why the hook of a measuring tape always slides back and forth?

This isn’t a flaw—it’s made by design and is actually a very important feature of measuring tapes. When you hook the tip of your tape over the end of an object to make a measurement from an outside edge (a pulling measurement), the tip is pulled out and the hook will extend slightly. The gap it slides —believe it or not— is exactly the thickness of the hook which is one-sixteenth of an inch. On the contrary, when you make a measurement from an inside corner (a pushing measurement), the tip squeezes in and it takes into consideration the space of the hook which guarantees an accurate measurement. In short, the tip of a measuring tape slides back and forth to compensate for its own thickness.
Isn’t this feature fascinating?

The mysterious number on the tape body

At the base of every measuring tape, you can usually find a number. In photo 1 below, the number is “70mm”. It tells us that the base of this measuring tape is “70mm” in length. You may wonder “why in the world do I have to know this?” Well, this number is incredibly useful when you are making an inside measurement. Normally, users tend to bend the measuring tape to get an inside measurement, but it distorts the reading and makes it very hard to read. However, if you place your measuring tape against the wall like photo 2, you can get the accurate length of the wall by combing the tape measurement and the length of the tape body, which is ”70mm” as suggested on the case.

There you have it, you are one step closer to become a master of measuring. Hopefully, you’ll find the above two tricks useful and we’ll come back for more soon.