I looked for one of these for years before I learned my trick. If anyone ever finds one or starts making one, let me know. I will buy a crate full!

As for the burn 10", I make the same mistake for some reason. There is something about setting the tape at 1" or 10", getting to the other end and forgeting to add it to the number on the plans. At some point I would like to try making a storey pole like the Japanese do. Take the time, mark up one or two 1x4 sticks and away you go. No more pulling out the tape measure!

Carpenters used to never use tape measures, long ago. There was a time when they did not use graduated measuring devices at all.
They had another method, which we would do well to know. They made several sticks the length of important measurements, or a known fraction thereof. Then you had that length, unchanging all the time.

Another practice I practice..... as an example when laying out a top plate with step laps, the rafters are 6", there is a 6" step lap on the end of the rafter. I will lay out the tape and mark 6", representing the inside edge of the first rafter seat. I come back to lay out with the square and finish describing the end of the plate. This way I don't confuse the 1" or 10" zero is zero. Many times when I recheck layout I am looking for just such numbers to burn, it may be 1" or 1-1/2, 4, whatever a known short measurement may be. There usually is something there, a mortice end, housing, 2" of relish.

I often use the 10 inch or 1 foot trick. I have found the best method of preventing errors is another set of eyes. I've worked in places where one person does layout and another cuts the timber. It was the person cutting the timber's responibility to catch any mistakes in the layout. Very rarely do two different people make the same mistake.

David

I must disagree about about the use of "graduated measuring devices" which in your view are not used but story poles can be just that. The story poles whether stepped off or divided are graduated devices of the builder. Modularity of measurement has been with us a very long time.

How does this world foundational story make sense without devices of measurement?

14Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

15And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits

As Bill Cosby would say "right, what's a cubit?"

And I thought that it was the length of one arm from finger tip to elbow.
Is that right?

Jim Rogers

Cubits vary greatly in a range of 18 to 21 inches. In places with stable kingships and empire, cubits and other standards were made by royal decree and administered taxing authorities.

In old Egypt, the cubit was divided into seven palms and each palm into four fingers. Divided cubit rulers have been found as grave goods dating back to 2500 BCE.

And it would lay flat on the timber - no crown to the tape. I realize that means no standout, but this would be for the shop, not the field. CB.

yes clark. exactly. flat, but not like a cloth tape, still with some rigidity. i don't need to show off how tall i can reach with the thing... just have an accurate measuring tool.

as i think about it, a normal tape, flipped over, would set the edges right on the wood - not a bad thing, assuming you could design it to lay flat near the case.

Flat tapes here

http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/drilldown_pages/view_category.asp?cat=129