Strange divisions/ graduation of steel tape, about 14.8 per major division

cubits? ?????ÿ

Nope, not quite long enough.

Furlongs per fortnight

Check the seller's other items, lots of interesting things being offered.

GB

We're missing some information the seller could have supplied.?ÿ Is there one major division with minor divisions? If so, how many small ones? Is it a cut or add tape??ÿ Is 50 the last division??ÿ What is an accurate measurement of the overall length?

@bill93

It's a slope tape.?ÿ

@bill93... I've asked the seller that information, will see what he responds with.

?ÿ

Posted by: @rj-schneider

And how does that work??ÿ

If stretched along a slope of one particular angle, it could read horizontal feet, but is that useful??ÿ?ÿ And it would be an excessive slope for most civil work.

@bill93?ÿ It shows 1 minor division halfway between the major divisions.?ÿ The only numerical markings in the picture were 4|9 and 5|0, not sure if that was the end or beginning- have asked the seller for more info.

?ÿ

@bill93

It's for uphill only.

@rj-schneider?ÿ I'm not personally familiar with a "slope tape", but from the book "Forestry Handbook, 2nd Ed, by Karl Wenger, c1984"?ÿ a slope tape has a trailing section of tape that has graduations according to the secant of the angle of slope, which allows one to calculate the actual true horizontal distance from a tape that was measured along a slope...?ÿ but the rest of the tape still had normal 1foot=12in graduations.

See pg 1091 in this book as shown on Google Books:?ÿ

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Forestry_Handbook/YVteNzkhHYoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=clinometer

The distance you give between marks (14.1875 inches) is very close to one-fifth of a Swiss "faden" or Swiss "klafter".

A bulk liquid storage tank dipping tape. It doesn't matter what the divisions are, as long as they are constant (for a uniform tank), and you have the tape-measure-to-volume-conversion-factor for a particular tank.

Alternatively a nautical depth gauge (fathoms, etc).

Posted by: @richard-imrie

If it doesn't matter what the divisions are, I doubt anyone would go to the trouble of setting up an unusual spacing rather than using feet or meters. And a steel tape kept on a reel isn't going to hang straight for dipping.

A fathom is 6 feet.

Posted by: @dave-lindell

That's a close correspondence, but a) why would anyone put the numbers on a tape?ÿ with units of 1/5 of the "standard" unit

And b) that's anachronistic. Meters would have been in use before that kind of tape was made (although not as much as my facetious suggestion of cubits.)

If you divided a nautical mile by 5280, would that be a nautical foot??ÿ Just asking for a friend. ?????ÿ

@rj-schneider?ÿ So you have to attach the tape to the theodolite and somehow look down its length to make sure you're holding it on the angle??ÿ This sounds like it might be more hassle than it's worth.

Posted by: @jaro

The only references Google finds for me that seem relevant say that in 1963 someone tried to define a nautical foot as 1/6000 of a nautical mile, but I don't think it caught on. See:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26169605?seq=1

It is proposed that units of length called nautical spans, chains and feetƒ??and defined respectively to be 60, 1/60 and?ÿ1/6,000 nautical miles in lengthƒ??be adopted internationally for use in weather-service and aeronautical operations

@bill93?ÿ?ÿyou said "And a steel tape kept on a reel isn't going to hang straight for dipping"

Well I guess you never heard of a plumb bob? Go to ebay and type in dipping tape. You just might learn something.

?ÿ

JOHN NOLTON

@bill93?ÿ There is nothing wrong with Mr Lindell's statement... It is correct.?ÿ

Its close to 1/2 of a?ÿarshin ;?ÿBut we still don't know what it is. I myself would like a better measurement between several marks on that tape,

say with a digital caliper to the 0.001 inch.

?ÿ

JOHN NOLTON