A 62 year old framer in Tulsa told me to throw out my tape measure and I'm still mad about it
I was helping my uncle frame a garage in Tulsa two months ago and this older guy on the crew, 62 years old, watched me measure a stud three times. He said "you trust that tape more than your own eyes." At first I thought it was just old guy talk. He pulled a story out about a 40 foot wall he built in 1994 where the tape had a bent hook and he ended up 3 inches off on the whole run. Now he just uses a story pole on anything past 8 feet. I tried it on my next job and it actually did save me time, but I still feel weird not carrying a tape in my pouch. Any of you old timers out there actually ditched the tape or is this just a Tulsa thing?
My grandpa did trim work in Bakersfield for 30 years and he never owned a tape that wasn't cracked or faded. He marked everything with a piece of red keel chalk on a 1x2 he kept in his truck, said it never slipped off a corner or gave him a wrong number. I still keep a tape in my pouch but I get why those guys stopped trusting the little hook on the end.