Watch those tape measures!

I’ve been using an old cloth tape measure from Mrs RBM’s sewing kit to measure girth. She finally got tired of having to hunt for it, so she bought me a new one of my very own. On a whim, I compared the old tape to the new one and the old one was off! (I compared both to the ruler that I use for length measurements to see which was correct.) The old tape was giving me about 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch more girth than I really had.

Anyway, just a word of warning. My tape wasn’t off too much, but your’s could be off by even more.

Corrected stats in sig.

Correction noted and accounted for.

well hot damn! I just checked mine and sure enough it was off…but in my favor….turns out I am 5 1/4 girth after all ( I knew it) . I checked it to two different rulers and sure enough it’s off by 1/8”……hell yea!!!!!

My tapemeasure is spot on, too bad, I was hoping to be finally 6” midgirth :D

well first of all let me just say again…..hot damn!!!
that was awesome to stumble onto an eigth inch gain outta nowhere like that

funny thing though,I checked 3 straight rulers which all measured exactly the same to my two cloth tapes,one tape is off by the 1/8 and the other is off by 1/16…..Piet says his is dead on……so

I’m no genius especially in geometrical measurements and volume and all that bull but is there any reason a cloth tape manufacturer would build extra length into a tape?or is the staright ruler the measurement to go by,it is what it is and that’s all there is too it?

as far as I’m concerned if i wrap a string around it and take it to a straight ruler it woulda been 5 1/4 - 5 5/16 all along so I’m changing my starting girth to that (which makes me feel so much better,for some reason 5 1/8 felt avg but 5 1/4 feels above average,makes no sense but i can’t tell you how much better it made me feel for some reason.

Slightly off the subject, but I was recently checking out some pumps. The manufacturer recommended measuring girth with a string and then transferring the string to a ruler. They say it’s more accurate than using a tape measure.

I think I agree with that, because the string eliminates errors that can arise because of the width of the tape measure. But I’d be concerned that the string could stretch. Maybe the better solution is a thin piece of wire (not stretched too tightly), or maybe even a thin chain, such as for a bracelet.

A string can easily dig into your skin without you noticing it and give you a smaller measurement. The width of the tapemeasure won’t give you any errors if you make sure you keep both ends aligned.

Tape measures are soft and can be stretched if you pull hard enough perhaps some manufacturers compensate with a shorter tape. Also the temperature of the room you’re in can effect the length and/or the elasticity.

Modesto: I’ve thought about maybe splitting an accurate tape measure lenghtwise. Using string I think could be inaccurate, too, if you don’t mark the overlap point just right. And string will definately stretch.

Gottaget: my loss, your gain. :)

I had something like this happen to me but not in my favor. I started out measuring with a string for 1 month, and I consistently got 5in EG. Then one day I just bought a tape measurer to be convenient and found that I really measured 4.75 :( . I still don’t know how I consistently meaured incorrectly with the string so many times but it happened. I just checked the tape with my ruler and its perfect so who knows.