Professor Hanington's Speaking of Science: Science of the tape

A typical pocket measuring tape

Hanington

It’s like they grow legs and walk away. One day, I found myself needing to measure a pipe diameter so I could buy the correct size. I searched and searched for almost a half hour for nothing. In the kitchen drawer, out in the garage, in the tool shed. Nothing. No ruler, no yardstick.

Oh yes, the small finishing nail I tapped in years ago for hanging up yardsticks was still there and proudly sticking out of the wall but empty in its employment. Cursing a-plenty, I vowed again to buy 10 of those $2 tape measures next time I go to Harbor Freight.

The spring-wound tape measure is a simple invention that has a long history of improvements. The first instance of people using a measuring device like a tape was by Roman surveyors when they used marked strips of leather. Because hides have a finite size, they couldn’t measure more than a dozen feet unless they pieced them together but that only allowed room for errors to creep in at the junctions.

The first construction of something using strips of metal was by James Chesterman of Sheffield, England. A historical marker on an old factory site in that city, the center of England’s steel industry, marks the spot where Chesterman patented the spring tape measure in 1829, along with a few other inventions such as the self-winding window blind and the first woven metallic tape.

It was the latter that provided the direction of innovation because he was in the business of making “flat wire” for the fashion industry, notably ladies dresses. In those days, tailors used strips of steel to hold the shape of the crinoline hoop skirts then in fashion. A really fluffed-out layered hoop skirt, such as a wedding gown, could use 180 feet alone of the this flat iron wire.

Unfortunately, the trend was short lived and Chesterman found himself sitting with miles of flat steel strips and no customers in sight. Such is the garment industry, they say.

Not content at this predicament, Chesterman decided to put graduated lines on very long steel tapes and market them to surveyors as a lightweight “Steel Band Measuring Chain.” This was a vast improvement to the heavy, bulky surveyors’ chains commonly being used and he touted that his product “has equal strength, greater correctness, is easier to clean, and to coil and uncoil, and is very much lighter and more compact.” With such marketing Chesterman made a bundle because his tapes sold for $17, (about $450 in today’s money), and were quite popular.

The first invention for a wound up long tape measure (such as a surveyor would use) in the United States was patent #29,096 issued July 10, 1860 to William H. Paine of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. For some reason the tape had no increments on it and only measured distance equal to the total span of the tape from beginning to end. You had to buy a different tape for different lengths. That was certainly ripe for improvement.

Only a few years later patent #45,372 was issued to William H. Bangs of West Meriden, Connecticut for his graduated rule – a true spring return pocket tape measure that could be stopped at any point and held checked by a button mechanism. The tape could be returned by sliding another side button on the case, allowing the spring to pull the tape back inside.

Not long after that Alvin J. Fellows of New Haven, Connecticut, not far away, received a patent for a spring-click tape measure. His improvement consisted of a novel method to attach the spring clip that locks the tape in “any desired position,” so it doesn’t retract until you release the clip.

Moving along, by 1895, the Justus Roe and Sons company of Patchogue, New York, produced the first pocket tape with lines and numbers etched in increments on the tape. They called it a classy name, the “Roe Electric Reel Tape Measure” but there really was nothing electric about it.

On 3 January 1922, Hiram A. Farrand of Berlin, New Hampshire, received patent #1,402,589 for his concave-convex tape, a major improvement for spring pocket tape measures. By placing a bent shape in the steel ribbon, the tape would not simply collapse on itself. This was useful, for example, if you were going to measure a height up along a wall and could only hold the tape with one hand because you were standing on a ladder holding on with the other.

The demand was so high that Farrand took on a partner William Brown and began mass-producing the pocket measuring tape, making a hundred thousand dollars the first year. Within five years their profit was over one million dollars. Sadly, the Great Depression in the early 1930s hit Mr. Farrand hard and eventually lead to his selling of the Farrand Rapid Rule Company to the tool manufacturer Stanley for only fifty thousand dollars. The business was moved to New Britain, Connecticut where it now makes millions of Stanley Tape Rules every year.

Gary Hanington is Professor Emeritus of physical science at Great Basin College and chief scientist at AHV. He can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].

In 1960 dad and mom were driving home in separate cars. Due to construction the road was jammed for miles with the cars only creeping along. Dad said: “I see your mom’s car 100 feet ahead even with that orange sign, get out and carefully walk up to her car and tell her to get off at the next exit because we are on empty.” Billy did that and turned around walking back with Dad picking him up exactly at the orange sign (he had moved forward). Assuming constant velocities, how far did Billy walk?

Solution: 241.4 feet

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