Vintage Tapes – The Garage Journal

R

rsieracki

Well-known member

Sep 13, 2012

#2

I grabbed a few of those at the flea market a few weeks ago, couldn't pass them up.

B

The PIRA used to booby-trap them. Leave one lying around with a few inches of tape hanging out, someone picks it up and reels in those few inches making a contact inside and 1/2 pound of Semtex takes their hands off/maims/kills them.

B

BWS

Well-known member

Sep 13, 2012

#4

Somewhere?Theres a calc for the correct amt of "pull" exerted on a tape measure.

http://www.in.gov/indot/files/proced1chapter4.pdf

Dig around above link,my CRS is kickin in.

B

Brianc500

Active member

Sep 13, 2012

#5

My Dad just gave me one that belonged to my Great Grandfather, I absolutely love it. You should have seen the looks I was getting when I brought it into Lowes to measure some appliances.

P

pain

Well-known member

Sep 13, 2012

#6

Brianc500 said:
My Dad just gave me one that belonged to my Great Grandfather, I absolutely love it. You should have seen the looks I was getting when I brought it into Lowes to measure some appliances.

I also have one that was my Grandfathers. I don't use it anymore but I will never get rid of it.

W

wnstwolf

Well-known member

Sep 13, 2012

#7

One of the coolest tools I had handed down. Back in the 80's I found one that was meant to be a gag gift. The 12 inch increments were actually only 11". This was fine if only one person ever used it but when you had 2 people or more on a job and one yelled out I need a board at 14.5" you would come back 13.5 every time. It was funny at the time..

Great post for bringing out a little piece of yester year. Someday not too far off someone will post about the tape measure with the voice recorder built in so you don't forget what the measurment was walking over to the saw :lol:

C

CaliNapco

Active member

Sep 13, 2012

#8

Inherited a hand full of different ones from my Dad and Grandpa.. hadn't thought much about using the cloth tapes till now.. cool idea...

Dad had a thing for measuring devices, so occasionally I'll use one of his favorites from his Ship Fitting days.. the steel folding ruler or one of the 5 or 6 other wooden versions he had.. guess they are other forgotten solider in the modern world...

I sill personally like the older metal tapes.. I use the hell out the little skinny 6' Lufkin that my Grandfather use to keep in his pocket... the other metal tape I love.. is my 12' framing tape with all the nail lengths, decimal equivalent and other good info printed on the back of the tape...

T

timbitca

Well-known member

Sep 13, 2012

#9

CaliNapco said:
I sill personally like the older metal tapes.. I use the hell out the little skinny 6' Lufkin that my Grandfather use to keep in his pocket... the other metal tape I love.. is my 12' framing tape with all the nail lengths, decimal equivalent and other good info printed on the back of the tape...

I can relate to this. My grandfather had a small Keuffel & Esser 12' tape like this one: http://hoboken.pastperfect-online.c...A31A60C8-BFC0-48C5-B0A2-169751753350&type=101 that I always carry on me when I'm back home working in the garage. Much better than the huge things we like to carry around today... I never take it away from home though, I'm too scared of losing it.

G

GarageEnvy

Well-known member

Sep 13, 2012

#10

A few good memories with the cloth tapes and some poor ones too. The quality is great and they feel good in your hand. I work as a residential appraiser and I used a reel tape probably 4 hours a day. But then there was the downside. They collected muck. Reel it out across a wall and wind up mud dust and debris. Another appraiser unwound his reel tape across an upstairs wall and left a nice mud streak across the bedding, flooring and wall. I always carried an indoor and outdoor tape. Eventually I switched to a metal tape. The reel was smaller and it was easier to clean. Eventually they rusted but I had a Craftsman and always got a free replacement. I paid for one and went through about 25. Gee, I wonder why they don't offer that deal any more? The ultimate in quality and durability was the Bailey's logger tape I bought. Auto rewind and built like a tank. Unfortunately it was heavy and bulky.

Technology marches on. For the last 6 years I've only used my Leica Disto laser measure.

On one inspection I met a seasoned appraiser. I was about 21 and he was probably mid 60's. He asked how old I was and I told him. His response, "Hell, kid, I've got a tape measure older than you." He proudly produced his circa 1965 cloth tape.

F

fflintstone

Well-known member

Sep 13, 2012

#11

Lufkin was based in saginaw or at least had a plant there so I see a fair amount of old lufkin tapes at yard sales. I picked up a cloth real tape for $0.50 a few weeks back. I picked up an ols folding steel rule last year.

for real mesuring though I use FAT max tapes. they are great IMO.

M

marty_p

Well-known member

Sep 13, 2012

#12

My Dad has one just like those. It makes the coolest spaceship-like sound when you reel it in. :thumbup:

I'll try to get a pic or two of it this weekend...

L

luvit

Well-known member

Sep 14, 2012

#13

I own a couple Craftsman 50ft and one Craftsman 75ft.
They get used a lot.
I got one from my grandfather's tools when he passed.
.

F

Falcon67

Well-known member

Sep 14, 2012

#14

I used to have my grand dad's tape and my dad's 50' job but have no idea where they got off to. I had not even thought about them until this post. Other than that, the only old tape I'm familiar with is one missing about 18 minutes. :lol:

T

Test Pilot

Well-known member

Sep 14, 2012

#15

yep when you want to measure some serious distance you got to break out the Vintage Tape !!! >>>>.

G

GarageMac

Member

Sep 14, 2012

#16

Very cool post/thread.

Think I have at least a couple tapes of pretty much everything mentioned here, in addition to a 100' and 300' reels, and way too darn many of the HF freebies they've been couponing.

(Hey, they're free.)

Use the 3' keychain one way more often than I thought I ever would.

The inherited ones mostly collect dust but they will not be parted with in my lifetime.

Glad to know I'm not the only one.

T

toolmiser

Well-known member

Sep 14, 2012

#17

I've also seemed to acquire a few of them. My Six year old daughter who usually isn't into tools got to looking one over and found out how new the rewind knob popped out. Maybe she understands how the old man is fascinated with old tools.

C

CAOS

Well-known member

Sep 14, 2012

#18

Dont cloth tapes have some stretch to them?

R

rick carpenter

Well-known member

Sep 14, 2012

#19

Cool and useful, yes, I have one. Handy on a ladder, no.

O

Okie Pete

Well-known member

Sep 14, 2012

#20

I used a seamstress cloth tape to transfer measurments from the stock rear fender to the repop front fender on my 45. Worked great on the curved surface.

D

Dan in Pasadena

Well-known member

Sep 15, 2012

#21

I've got these two old types you can see in the photo below (sorry for the lousy cell photo). Both are stainless steel, NOT cloth.

The dark one was my father's and he passed away in 1990. I know for a fact he'd had it since I was a kid and I'm 57 now so its pretty old.

Wouldn't cloth fray and stretch over time?

U

uppster

Well-known member

Sep 15, 2012

#22

Wouldn't cloth fray and stretch over time?[/QUOTE]

Yes they did. In the early '60's&'70's my father owned a carpet installation company. Dad used to cut up the carpet rolls to the room sizes and used the dark brown 50' Lufkins. He wore out a bunch of them. I still have one that I used. If posting pictures wasn't such a hassle I would dig it out and show it.

B

BJ42LX

Well-known member

Sep 15, 2012

#23

Mine. The Atco is also metric, which is a big plus!

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

K

ket-tek

Well-known member

Sep 15, 2012

#24

The HF tape seems a little out of place in this photo

Dan in Pasadena said:

D

Dan in Pasadena

Well-known member

Sep 15, 2012

#25

Ha ha, I don't even remember when I got that. Those tapes are pretty much the tapes I DON'T use. That's why they're on that little toy.

S

Shoottx

Well-known member

Sep 17, 2012

#26

I had one of those dump trucks when I was a kid (yeah a long time ago) and it hauled a lot of dirt. We had a vacant lot next to the house and we meaning the neighborhood kid built a sub division in ti with our trucks and graders and etc. Thanks for the memories, hadn't thought of that in a long time!

D

ddawg16

Well-known member

Sep 17, 2012

#27

You made me get up, walk outside in my pj bottoms and barefoot to my garage...get my tape measure, bring it back in and take a pic so I could share it......

G

gregthor

Well-known member

Sep 18, 2012

#28

wnstwolf said:
One of the coolest tools I had handed down. Back in the 80's I found one that was meant to be a gag gift. The 12 inch increments were actually only 11". This was fine if only one person ever used it but when you had 2 people or more on a job and one yelled out I need a board at 14.5" you would come back 13.5 every time. It was funny at the time..

Similar story

I was building a 16 x 20 barn about 20 years ago and I borrowed one of these old steel reel tape measures from Fred, my neighbor. Fred was a gas! He was a B17 tail gunner in WW ll. A great guy! My yard was pie shaped and I needed to get the setbacks correct, 7 feet from the side and 5 feet from the back. I found the steel stakes in the ground, measured for the barn location and was happy until AFTER the concrete was poured and I returned the tape measure and to Fred and he says “Say… did I tell you the end of that tape measure got old and broke off so I cut exactly 1 foot of the end of the tape so be sure to add a foot…………………….”

M

Mikea57

Well-known member

Sep 20, 2012

#29

I've still got my Dad's that was a South Central Bell throw-away. It's a 100' and the leather covering is getting worn, but it still measures fine. It sure is handy when you need to measure a long length!

C

carhunter

Well-known member

Sep 20, 2012

#30

timbitca said:
I can relate to this. My grandfather had a small Keuffel & Esser 12' tape like this one: http://hoboken.pastperfect-online.c...A31A60C8-BFC0-48C5-B0A2-169751753350&type=101 that I always carry on me when I'm back home working in the garage. Much better than the huge things we like to carry around today... I never take it away from home though, I'm too scared of losing it.

Did you lose yours?

I just bought an identical one the other day. What a great design.

Its too nice to use regularly though...I'm afraid to lose it as well

G

GreyOwl

Well-known member

Sep 20, 2012

#31

I have two, a Craftsman 50' and a Lufkin 100' but the Lufkin has the covering coming loose and shrinking. Has anyone replaced the leather covers yet?

T

timbitca

Well-known member

Sep 20, 2012

#32

carhunter said:
Did you lose yours? I just bought an identical one the other day. What a great design.

Its too nice to use regularly though...I'm afraid to lose it as well

No... I never really let it out of sight long enough to take chances... Last time I used it I put it down in the wrong place by accident then it later took me almost 10 minutes to find it, I was just about to start freaking out when I found it.

If I come across another one I'll probably buy it so I can use it, and save my grandpa's as a keepsake. A 25' tape is fine... but day-to-day a 12' is usually more than enough for around the house/office and much easier to carry. Not to mention that small quality tapes like that are getting harder to find, I know I can never find anything good around here besides the 2$ keychain tapes that aren't worth even that.

I

incognito

New member

Sep 21, 2012

#33

The only instance where a cloth tape would be better over a metal tape that i can think of is when you're going over a curve. Maybe if you're measuring over a painted surface that you don't want to scratch. I have one cloth tape and it's about shot because the cloth is wore away to only a few threads.

Metal tapes are nice because you can be in a room full of ****, extend the tape out 6 feet over the mess and measure something up. They also are more durable and their accuracy doesn't degrade over time.

B

BFBOB

Well-known member

Oct 3, 2012

#34

I have a couple of vintage 6' steel tapes. I like them, but never use them for fear of tearing them up as I do the ones I do use. So, they are for sale. Ryan mentioned where, but I think the rules say I can't. Oh, I guess I just put 'em up for sale here, too!

W

where2

Well-known member

Oct 4, 2012

#35

Having a BS degree in Surveying and Mapping, I've played with a few different measuring instruments. I have an old leather covered Dietzgen 50' steel tape I picked up for a song at a local estate sale. The previous owner was an aircraft machinist, and took good care of his tools.

Being a Surveyor, I commonly have a 25' pocket tape around in increments of feet, tenths of feet, and hundredths of feet. On a few occasions, I have been wandering through the local salvage store and had other customers notice the pocket tape on my hip and want to borrow my pocket tape to measure something. When I explain that it is NOT a common pocket tape in feet and inches, most folks stare back in amazement that I would carry such a thing. I find 5.43 much easier to remember than 5' 5-5/32". Americans detest the metric system, but a pocket tape in feet, tenths, and hundreths becomes quite simple to use. I've always been surprised more people haven't adopted surveyors tapes.

If you want complicated measurements, we could talk Poles, Rods, Chains and Links. If anyone knows where to find a surveyors "Gunter's Chain", PM me.

T

tinkers6

New member

Oct 16, 2012

#36

I just found one of those alone with the plomb tool mini box...very cool

S

Stuart in MN

Well-known member

Oct 16, 2012

#37

GreyOwl said:
I have two, a Craftsman 50' and a Lufkin 100' but the Lufkin has the covering coming loose and shrinking. Has anyone replaced the leather covers yet?

There are a few places out there that sell leather for recovering vintage cameras, here's one: http://www.cameraleather.com/colors/restoration_black.htm It looks like it would work for these old tapes as well.

J

Jack Olsen

Super Moderator

Staff member

Oct 26, 2012

#38

There you go again, Garage Journal.

$10.50 on Ebay:

Those guys used to make slide rules.

R

RC KID

Well-known member

Nov 18, 2012

#39

I thought the same thing last week. So I started buying vintage tape measures to place in the tool box for when I need them. And yes, I am buying them to use.

C

CoopJack

New member

Mar 1, 2013

#40

Here are a few pics of my grandfather's well worn and well used steel tape. I don't really use it as about half way down the tape it's nearly rusted through and the the wind is quite hard. I love the leather outer.

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Active member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Active member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Attachments

Member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

New member

Well-known member

Attachments

Well-known member

New member

Well-known member

Super Moderator

Well-known member

New member

Attachments

The Archive