Starrett
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JayG
This 5m Starrett tape is almost great. Like others have said the body has the add on measurement in Inches not metric which is bewildering since this is a metric tape and also the front of the housing is curved. The curved housing while annoying isn't really an issue for me as i use my tapes by rolling it until the tick marks are flat against the stock to get my measurements.
Josh
Nice coating on the tape. Extends about 2m horizontally before bending so far it will pop and fall.
Rubber coating on the bottom is a nice touch for easy grip, but I doubt will last as long as a full metal body.
Ajax
As a metric tape measure, it's going to be fine for what I wanted. However, someone at Starrett must have figured you wanted to do some metric conversion in your head because they've left the body length dimension in Imperial. Nothing is on the other side either.
For what it's worth, I kind of prefer the way they've numbered this measure. Adding the zero to the end of the value on the tape is super easy and will likely help me reduce errors.
good_equipment_bad_photographer
This tape measure is a metric only yet the "add on" for the case is in inches (+3"). That is bizarre.
Also, the front of the housing is curved so that it is impossible to see what the measurement is without eyeballing from above where the front of the housing intersects the measurement lines. If it were straight across or if the lines went through the middle, it would be ok. As it is, the housing is useless to determine the measurement when you are measuring an inside dimension (and adding inches to centimeters). This is yet another failed attempt since it tries to crowbar a metric scale in an imperial case. Starrett is supposedly the benchmark in accuracy yet this scale is an embarrassment. Avoid.
Customer
Having a metric tape measure was handy until the first time I needed to measure something more than 3m long. After 3.6m, the mechanism inside slipped, and it would not retract. I took the cover off, re-rolled it by hand, only to find it just breaks after 3m of tape is pulled out.
An odd thing too is that the width of the body, useful for measurements inside spaces, is given in inches. Come on Starret, inches isn't metric. What's the point?
Stephen Throop
One day in the 1980s I wanted a replacement board that would exactly fit a space I measured at 26 and 21/32”. I cut a replacement exactly an inch too short. Identifying the 21/32 mark had so preoccupied me that I’d been on the wrong side of the 26” mark.
Now I realized that the metric system was more reliable because the scale was simpler. In this case I’d needed 677mm. That was easY: two marks past 675. It’s also an easier number to write and read.
Tapes with millimeters on one edge were common, but you can’t always measure with the edge you prefer. I bought an 8 meter tape from Craftsman. It was such an improvement that I bought a second in case something happened to the first.
I helped a former carpenter who wanted a small L-shaped board to repair rot in a roof valley. He measured, went down the ladder, cut the piece, returned to the roof, and found it was wrong. Had he really expected to remember four measurements involving eighths of an inch? I offered to write the measurements. For simplicity, I would have used my metric tape. He refused. It took him four tries to cut the piece he needed. He’d wasted time, energy, and a whole sheet of plywood.
I’ll use an inch tape if whole inches are close enough. If somebody needs more precision, it’s easier to write the millimeters, then convert with a calculator.
I saw a neighbor putting imitation stone siding on the underpinning of his house. Because the yard wasn’t perfectly level, he needed to know the required height at each end of a piece besides the length. That was simpler than the four measurements for an L, and quarter inches were precise enough. Still, he kept making mistakes. Metric measurements made it simpler, and there were no more mistakes.
In a couple of cases, we had to cut holes to insert vents. Working from edges, we’d measure to one corner, then add or subtract to mark the others. It’s much simpler to add and subtract millimeters than inches and fractions.
Eventually, the first tape was damaged. I wanted another backup. Craftsmen no longer sold tapes marked in millimeters on both edges. When I saw that they had one, I bought it.
There’s one disappointment. Between 5 and 10mm marks, there are four lines: 1 through 4 or 6 through 9. On the Craftsman, the first and fourth were shorter than the second and third. That meant I didn’t have to count to know which mark I was looking at. On the Starrett, they’re the same length.
To make an inside measurement, the case of a steel tape may say to add 2 or 3 inches, but it can be hard to see at what mark the tape goes into the case. When I bought the my first metric tape, I made a spacer to give me a precise reading 100mm smaller than an inside measurement. I keep it handy under the belt clip. The photos show a similar spacer for the Starrett. I extended the tape, latched it, and made sure there was no end play. I would normally have taken the tape out of the box to place the spacer. It shows 346, so I know the distance is 446mm.
I used an audio CD box to calibrate the spacer. The sides are rigid and square to the bottom. It’s big enough for the tape and small enough for a 6” caliper. The caliper said 121.5mm. I extended and latched the tape, then shaved and sanded the spacer until it came to 21.5mm on both edges of the tape.
The Toxster
My needs are very basic so even it it's not heavy duty it serves my purpose. It is actually a little better than expected in one respect: it is actually marked on both edges of the tape, not just on one side as pictured on the product page (see my attached photo). The flaw is that the width of the actual tape case is marked as 3 inches. That is just silly for a metric tape.
D. Andrews
Disappointed that for inside measurements the case dimensions are + inches and not + metric.
