Metric Rulers???

[RFGuy]

Anyone have any recommendations for metric rulers to use in the shop? I have always preferred imperial units in the shop even though I have used metric and imperial interchangeably at work for years. Starting to use metric a bit more now, especially since I got the Domino. I saw these stainless steel metric rulers for a good price on Banggood so I wanted to try them. I have only ordered a few items from Banggood in the past and everything has arrived okay until this time. These orders were shipped from China to USA in a plastic bag, so no protection for the rulers whatsoever. The package arrived looking like a hockey stick making it difficult to use them especially wherever precision is required. I am still fighting with Banggood to try to get them to replace them or refund the purchase. Of course, I will try to flatten these out and see if I can use them, but regretting my choice here. Anyone have a good recommendation for flat, machinist style, metric rulers like this?

Just an fyi, but the rulers I had ordered were:

150mm x 19mm x 0.65mm

300mm x 26mm x 0.8mm

600mm x 38mm x 1.2mm

1200mm x 35mm x 1.5mm

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[Mike907]

Starrett offers quite a selection of rules. They aren't cheap and they're more precise than may be needed for woodworking, but they are high quality.

https://www.starrett.com/category/11110 ... tBy=wp/asc

Mike

[RFGuy]

Starrett offers quite a selection of rules. They aren't cheap and they're more precise than may be needed for woodworking, but they are high quality.

https://www.starrett.com/category/11110 ... tBy=wp/asc

Mike

Mike,

Thanks. Unfortunately, a 300mm ruler from Starrett would cost a small fortune. One thing I really liked about the Banggood rulers is the large print on the ruler makes it highly visible/readable. I love the couple of Starrett tools that I own, but their long steel rulers are kind of hard to read unless you are right on top of them. I know Woodpeckers sells metric rulers as well, though they are aren't flat steel rulers like this. Just wondering if anyone is using metric in the their shop and if they found a good alternative for metric steel rulers. By the way, I have a tape measure already - one of the Fastcap models that works well, but sometimes I prefer a fixed, flat ruler for layout.

[BuckeyeDennis]

I was on a similar quest a couple years ago, trying to find a good meter stick for less $40. I looked at several in stores, and even bought a couple to evaluate. The scales themselves were generally accurate, but the ends were inaccurately sheared, instead of being ground to the scale. So I sorted through the inventory at Woodcraft, and bought the best one they had. It looked very much like the one in your pics. When I got it home, I soon discovered that my rule stop would fit on one end of the meter stick, but not the other. Out came the calipers, which confirmed that the sides were several thousandths out of parallel. So I decided to re-grind one side with my conical sanding disc. Well, the heat from that operation bowed the ruler into a banana shape, rendering it complete junk, and I couldn’t even return it.

After that, I gave up and bought a meter stick and matching stops from WoodPeckers. I would have saved a lot of time and money had I done so in the first place. But I don’t know that they make the thin style that you can slip beneath your rip fence. If you do find a good one at a sub-Starrett price, be sure to let us know.

[RFGuy]

Dennis,

Thanks. Yeah, I may end up regretting going cheap on this one, but I can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a metric ruler. So, as of this morning, Banggood has offered to refund the price of the rulers. They were off for a week and have been slow to respond so it has been a couple of weeks of not knowing what they would do. I will try to flatten these rulers out and see if I can get some use out of them. I don't know how accurate they will be, but honestly if they are within 1mm, I will probably be happy with them. It is hard for me to mark with unaided eyesight without being off by 0.5mm anyway. In other words, I wasn't looking for this to be a reference ruler, just a reasonably accurate layout ruler. By the way, I did find a Woodpecker-like aluminum hook ruler in metric from Banggood (see pic below). It arrived in perfect condition and I look forward to trying it out. Just wish the steel rulers had arrived in as good of shape. I wished I had checked Amazon first because they have some steel metric rulers from China at a good price:

https://www.amazon.com/Shinwa-H101-C-Me ... 21&sr=8-44

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[Hobbyman2]

Starrett ?
https://www.travers.com/flexible-steel- ... 0sEALw_wcB

[Hobbyman2]

https://www.amazon.com/High-precision-P ... 47&sr=8-33

[BuckeyeDennis]

Dennis,

Thanks. Yeah, I may end up regretting going cheap on this one, but I can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a metric ruler. So, as of this morning, Banggood has offered to refund the price of the rulers. They were off for a week and have been slow to respond so it has been a couple of weeks of not knowing what they would do. I will try to flatten these rulers out and see if I can get some use out of them. I don't know how accurate they will be, but honestly if they are within 1mm, I will probably be happy with them. It is hard for me to mark with unaided eyesight without being off by 0.5mm anyway. In other words, I wasn't looking for this to be a reference ruler, just a reasonably accurate layout ruler. By the way, I did find a Woodpecker-like aluminum hook ruler in metric from Banggood (see pic below). It arrived in perfect condition and I look forward to trying it out. Just wish the steel rulers had arrived in as good of shape. I wished I had checked Amazon first because they have some steel metric rulers from China at a good price:

https://www.amazon.com/Shinwa-H101-C-Me ... 21&sr=8-44

hook_ruler.jpg

1 mm accuracy is a pretty low hurdle, so I suspect that you'll be happy with any rules in this class.

That Shinwa rule in the Amazon link shows an example of the end-cut accuracy that I was complaining about, even though Shinwa is a Japanese company. If you zoom in on the product photo, you can see that the distances from the end of the rule to the first gradation marks are less than the distance between the gradation marks. Just eyeballing it, I'd estimate that it's off about 0.2 mm (0.008"). That's roughly equal to the cutting-accuracy increase you get by tying the Shopsmith main table to the extension table (with connector tubes). It's still OK for many woodworking purposes, of course. But personally, I don't like my woodworking tolerances to be compromised by instrumentation errors. It's way cheaper to make those go away than it is to upgrade to a machine that can hold commensurately tighter cutting tolerances, and it's way easier than re-working and hand-fitting workpieces.

But that's just me. I tend to approach woodworking like a manufacturing process. But others enjoy hand-fitting parts, and/or have learned techniques that let them make perfectly-fitting assemblies without ever taking an absolute measurement. I'd like to become proficient at the latter myself.

[Hobbyman2]

+1 BuckeyeDennis , I all ways tart at the #1 graduation indication regardless of what rule I use or who made it, imperial or metric , I dont try to measure to the end of the ruler I just use a longer rule , but thats just me , I have dealt with the issue of the end cut / grind being off too many times even on high end rulers . JMO

[RFGuy]

Dennis and Hobbyman2,

Thanks guys. I appreciate it. You make good points. Yeah, this is an experiment for me...I figured these were cheap enough to take a chance on and see how well they work or not. I agree about the end reference being important, but for shorter measurements I am hoping I can use the end hook ruler instead for hopefully better precision or by compensating by skipping the 1st gradation on these rulers. Keep in mind that I ordered 150mm, 300mm, 600mm and 1200mm rulers. For the 300, 600 or 1200mm rulers, do I really care if I am off by <1mm on that first gradation (for long measurements that is)? I am actually more concerned that there isn't appreciable error accumulating down the length of these rulers, i.e. the markings are reasonably accurate. Speaking, of course, only of woodworking use here and not for machinist type work. These rulers really appealed to me because of the large format text making it much easier to read them, but this may be a false economy if I have errors from them so we will see. By the way, the flexible Starrett is closer to what I was looking for and is very reasonable at $20, but the issue that I have with it is it is thin & flexible and I worry it will bend from repeated use. I see these flexible rulers as more of the type for using like on the 520 tables where they are fixed and only occasionally moved. I am looking for a rigid metric ruler like the Starrett linked below, but one with larger numbers on it (for my aging eyes). One that I can pick up and slap down on a panel or board for measuring and marking that can take this kind of use/abuse.

Starrett Rigid Metric Ruler - why can't this ruler have larger numbers???
https://www.travers.com/rigid-steel-rule/p/57-065-316/

By the way, I have a good quality folding ruler in metric on my wishlist...just waiting for some family member to order it for me. It is supposed to be class II accurate (<+/-0.9mm @ 3M). IF I ever get this one, maybe it will become my default metric ruler for this, but it is harder to read the numbers on it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001PN0FLK/?c ... _lig_dp_it

So, the first couple of items that I ordered from Banggood in the past came with no issues. My more recent orders have been a bit of a disaster, so sharing this as a cautionary tale. Banggood, if you are not familiar, is kind of like an Amazon equivalent for Chinese goods. They have all kinds of products on there, not just tools, but electronics, etc. Since everything comes by boat from China it typically takes a month or more to get an order. I had ordered a carbide corner scraping tool, but they sent a corner woodworking clamp by mistake. Rather than send me the right product they just refunded me the money so I have a clamp that I don't want for free. Half the rulers that I ordered arrived with no issue, but the rest were damaged as shown on this thread. Two weeks after opening a claim on it, they finally agreed to refund my money on these as well. They use canned responses when you open a claim and don't really read what you submit, e.g. I submitted all the pictures showing the issue, but they sent a canned response asking for pictures?!? Another annoying thing is if you do need to correspond on an order, like a return/refund, you have to log into their website. They don't send emails notifying you when they respond which can be annoying to have to repeatedly check...