Decent tape measure and spirit?

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Are fatmax measures the best? They seem to bend nicer than the thinner ones. With spirit level you, worth getting a four foot as well as my two footer?
 
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I Recently bought a STANLEY FATMAX PRO BOX BEAM LEVEL 180CM, very impressed with it, much better than some forge crap I was using before.

Can't help on tape measure.
 
With levels the longer the better , have a set of four up to 6ft.(Stabila)
Have destroyed so many tapes I just by half a dozen 8m tapes from the pound shop and bin them when they fail.
 
got some Chinese tape measures from fleabay. god only knows what the "inches" measurements were.... but they definitely weren't inches!
 
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as said above cheap (stanley,dewalt tapes from screwfix)or a decent laser measure
and stabila or true blue (empire) i find the fatmax levels rattly
 
I use an Advent full metric tape as my main tape measure. And Kapro (bought out by Draper) for levels. Both better than any Stanley tape/level I have used before.
 
Stabila R-type levels - I'm gradually replacing my old Swanson levels with them. I despise Fat Max tapes because for what I do they are just too thick to sit right in the pocket. For tapes I buy 5 and 8 metre Bahco stainless steel ones with magnetic ends (handy when working off steel columns or metal profile studs) although I've recently added a Hultafors tape to my "collection". Both the Bahco and Hultafors tapes are marked both sides (handy). The Bahcos are metric and Imperial, the Hultfors are metric only. The Hultafors also allows me to lock the tape and use the pointed end hook (which takes a while to get used to) to parallel cut plasterboard accurately (something I've never managed with any tape before). It also as a fold out "feeler" to allow accurate inside measurements on window openings, etc without the need to fold the tape over and stick my tongue inside my cheek to guestimate the opening size.....
 
i only use normal 5x8m stanley tapes for no other reason than i think i have a form off ocd:LOL:
as i have a lot off dewalt the stanley tapes match:D
any way if a tape is inaccurate providing you use an identical tape to measure a gap size or plan and then mark on the work its off no importance as it will be accurate
off course transferring accurate measurements to an inaccurate tape will give wrong results
 
Then don't use a tape - they are prone to error, especially if you take a measure with one tape and cut with another. Instead use a rod....

In FWW many years ago a guy running a fit-out crew described how he always bought identical tapes in tens and compared them to each other, and to the scale on the panel saw in the shop. He rejected about 50% of the tapes he bought because there were unacceptable differences tape to tape. Only one or two tapes in every 10 were accurate to the panel saw scale and those were always marked up for use as reference tapes, i.e. the tapes used to take critical measurements. I've found similar issues over the years. BTW, the tapes he was buying were Stanley's - and in my own experience they are far more accurate than cheap Chinese tat if you need to send measurements into the shop for machining. On the other hand if you use the same tape to measure with that you cut with, it makes little difference
 
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yes rod or sticks are very accurate but a bit off a pain iff within o,5 to 1mm is accurate enough :D
 
The problem with tapes is that people misread them, they transpose figures when writing them down, they mismeasure (especially on very tall measures or inside measures - hence my oddball tape choice above), etc And then there is the 100mm error you can get because the hook gets in the way, etc. Rods, on the other hand, work well in a lot of setting-out situations
 
we have all done the +100 or even the -100mm mistake when going for "flat " option reading the tape :D
 
The guy at Screwfix said these two in a pack were popular. Only £10. The really wide fatmax ones were £24. Did I make the right choice.
Also, always been curious, when people bend the tape when for example measuring te height of a door. Where on that bend do they read the exact measurement?
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