I finally figured out why my tape measure kept snapping back wrong

For about 6 months I thought my Stanley tape was just broken. It would retract all jerky and the hook would catch on nothing. Then my buddy Mike looked at it and goes "dude you've been pulling the hook straight up instead of angling it." He showed me how to slightly tilt it back when retracting and now it works perfect. Anybody else have a tool they used wrong forever before someone set them straight?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_morgan14d ago

Nah, I gotta disagree with you on this one... I've been using tape measures for like 15 years and I've never angled the hook on purpose. The whole point of that hook is it slides back smooth if you just let it go straight. I think your tape might've actually been a little sticky inside, like maybe some dirt or rust was making it catch. Once I cleaned mine out with a bit of WD-40 and worked it back and forth a few times, it never did that jerky thing again. Angling it feels like a workaround for a problem that's probably just a dirty tape. You should see how much dust and grime gets in there after you use it on a job site for a few months.

blakem8213d ago

Ha! Reminds me of the time I was framing a deck with my buddy and his tape had this little kink in it from getting stepped on. We spent like an hour measuring everything twice cause nothing was lining up. Turned out the hook was bent just a hair and we were chasing our tails. I'm not saying angled hooks are always wrong, but most of the time it's just a dirty or beat up tape. A little squirt of lube and a quick wipe down fixes 90% of tape measure problems in my experience.