On November 7, 2001 Mike Wickiser and Pete Riegel compared 33 steel tapes against a standard, calibrated tape. Tapes were provided by 20 measurers, and included tapes made in four countries.

Results of the comparison may be seen in Measurement News, issues 110 and 111.

Measurement News

The graph below shows how things came out. Results have been normalized to show the tape length as a percent of nominal length.



The very worst tape encountered was a Stanley tape made in Brazil, which was a 30 meter tape, later tested by Stanley and found to have a length of 30.01 meters.

Our conclusion, based on the testing, was that inaccuracy of steel tapes is not a serious problem for us.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pete Riegel,