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Tenth of an Inch

An observation or two about the most-used tool in most kits.

Does anyone actually use the tenths of an inch scale on their steel rules? I have never, well, hardly ever, found a use for it.

Annoyingly (mildly) it is just in the wrong place - with the zero to the left, it is on the top edge, which I find to be the most convenient place to measure something, without obscuring the measur-ee.

All of mine have this, old and new, except for my Starrett Combination Set.

Another feature I would like to see on my steel rules is an end scale, convenient for poking into confined spaces.

Getting old and cranky, JW²

Reply to
JW²
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OK - I know it is not "real engineering" but this was my most-used part of the rule before I retired. Working in electronics and PCB design which is/was[1] baseed on a 0.1" grid.

[1] It is now either a 2.54mm grid or "hard" metric 2.5mm for some connectors and integrated circuits.
Reply to
Geo

e:

Another thing that really annoys me is the 1/2 mm increments, they clutter the first 100mm up so it's unreadable, if you can't split a

1mm increment by eye then the 1/2mill increments are totally lost on you and need referring to the guide dog.

John S.

Reply to
John S

Use it a lot as our PCB's are based on 0.1" pitch components. Haven't gone over to Metric just yet!

Still use BA screws for some things as well....

Peter

Reply to
Peter A Forbes

Dunno about 1/10ths of an inch - never used them either, but a friend of mine got sent to the US on a civil engineering project and was trying to work out why stuff was going wrong. He was jet-lagged and under pressure, and after checking metric conversions thought the 'Inches' lookes strangely big, then had a count up and realised the tape was divided into 'deci-feet'!

I've no idea if that is 'normal', or a US civil engineering quirk, but it certainly palyed havoc with some of the cross -referencing.

Richard

Reply to
Richard Shute

Some people I know had a US chap helping them and they left him to measure up some panels required to hold lagging around a furnace. The dimensions went out to the local laser profiler and the stuff was subsequently delivered when somebody realised an error had been made as many panels were a 1/10th of the width or height they should have been. Seems he was used to inches and mm and cm were not his thing. He had spec'd the dimension in a mix of mm and cm but not specified units and the profiler made the panels as though they were all mm.

Reply to
David Billington

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