My Favorite Tape Measure

It goes without saying that I can’t do my job as a framer, sider & concrete former without a tape measure.  I mean seriously what a wasted opening statement.  I can use a rock as a hammer, or a knife as a screwdriver, but I can’t use another hand tool to do what my tape does. 

I love to try new tape measures to see if they will last longer, reach farther or have some other feature that’ll save me time.  I’ve been using long stand out tapes since 2000 or so and won’t use anything else.  I’ve tried using a cheap tape in the winter to save money but it’s a waste of time.  They don’t last, and are just annoying to use. 

What I have found is that with a good tape, it will last longer, but more important to me, is that it makes my job easier or save me time.  My preferred tape measure is this Milwaukee tape.  The version you see in these pictures is the magnetic and I love that tape too. I buy what’s onsale between the two tapes. I’ve been using the Milwaukee Stud tape for the last year and really like it.  I used the FatMax tape for years and tried out a few different DeWalt tapes last year. 

First off let’s address the 17’ stand out.  All tapes claim a certain stand out and it takes some gymnastics to get them to stand out that far.  Basically they don’t live up to the hype. But that doesn’t matter to me.  I found 13-14’ was what this tape would do, but again it takes some work to get it.  Why is stand out important?  It saves me steps, allows me to measure across openings and it just means the tape will last longer.  

Tapes I’ve tried in the past that promised long stand out were very curved which made measurements difficult to read.  This tape doesn’t have that problem.  The blade is wider, not super curved.

Two things I love about this tape besides the stand out.  One, the magnet on the end.  I work with wood and concrete, neither of which is magnetic.  But I install a lot of hardware that is metal and the magnet means often I don’t need someone to hold my tape.  Sounds minor, but it isn’t. 

The second thing I love about this tape is the “finger stop”.  I use it all the time to keep the tape from retracting as I use it.  It seemed to be automatic for me to use the finger stop and another framer on the crew commented on it last week how much he loves it too.  It makes scribing easy too.  When marking rips on plywood or drywall, the finger stop means my finger doesn’t ride against the material which can leave splinters in your finger. 

The 2 sided printing is a nice feature because often I’m measuring to a laser dot above my head and this makes it easy to read the measurement.  While I love the Stud tape from Milwaukee, I prefer this tape because it is a little more compact.  One last thing to note is that the tape is impact restant.  I dropped it off the house, two stories, it was fine.