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Thread: Trick ruler - photo

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    Supporting Member Frank S's Avatar
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    Reminds me of the Mars orbiter misalignment
    CNN - Metric mishap caused loss of NASA orbiter - September 30, 1999

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    I had a Chinese made steel ruler like that once. Well they tricked me into buying it. Great for getting around the fishing size regulations.

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    Reminds me of the surveyors measure which is in 1/10's of a foot.

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    I just had something like this I dealt with. I had an L square with silk screened scales. It turned out that the ruler was printed with 25mm to the inch instead of 25.4mm to the inch.

    I was trying to measure something and had used a different scale to estimate and was using the L square to try to get it more accurate. For the life of me, it was always off, so I thought, well maybe the square is not square, so I held it up against a framing square and it was square, but the numbers and lines didn't line up. There is was, each inch was off a little and it increased by length. So I checked the mm side and it was off as well.

    I immediately pulled out the acetone and obliterated all of the markings. As a square it was fine, but ALL the markings were wrong.
    Last edited by BuffaloJohn; Nov 18, 2023 at 09:25 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by katy View Post
    Reminds me of the surveyors measure which is in 1/10's of a foot.
    That is supposed to be that way...

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    Hmmm - this reminds me of an old joke, however - I learned years ago when building projects to select one measuring tool (hopefully 1 foot equaled 1 foot) and be sure to only use that one throughout the build.

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