Here's another addition to my "What's this thing?" series. Here you’ll learn how they differ from regular rulers, how to use them, and why you need one!
Video Transcript
Hey, happy Sunday!
I'm Chelsea from TheStudentArchitect.com where I create a variety of resources for architects and architecture students. If you're interested in checking out any of my online courses, tutorials, blog posts, or anything like that, you can check out the link up here.
So today we're going to talk about this straight edge ruler.
So what is a straight edge ruler? You might be thinking, well hey, isn't it probably just like a regular ruler? And in some ways it kind of is, but if we look at a regular ruler compared to the straight edge ruler, you can see that there's a little bit of a difference in the design itself as well as the length.
So a straight edge ruler is typically longer than a regular ruler. So the one that I have here is 24 inches and the length of this ruler is actually a little bit longer than a normal ruler would be, this one is 18 inches. But another design change is that the straight edge ruler actually has a little bit of a lip to it and that makes it a lot easier if you're using it to use as a guide for cutting, it actually has a lip on it to protect your fingers while you're cutting.
So you can see if I was just using a regular ruler here, that my fingers are very close to the blade and that I could easily slip up over the ruler and hit my finger. But if we look at the straight edge ruler you can see there is a little groove here for your fingers to sit and there's a good distance of space between the knife and my fingers. So it's very unlikely that the knife is going to slip up and jump up over this lip here, whereas it's very likely that that could happen with a ruler like this.
So there's a couple of qualities that you'll want to pick out or notice when you're choosing a straight edge ruler. So first you want it to have some kind of a rubber or non-slip backing to it so that it's not sliding around as you're using it to use as a guide, so you want it to be able to stay in place.
Another thing you want to pay attention to are the units. So do you want it to be in metric units or imperial units? So that's going to be a personal choice for you.
You also want to pay attention to the material of the ruler itself. So I definitely prefer aluminum tools or more durable tools whenever they're available just because they last longer, they're more durable, and I don't have to worry about them getting damaged as I'm using them.
Then, of course, the last thing you want to make sure is that it actually does have a lip to it. So again, you can see it has a little groove for your fingers to sit there as well as a taller lip.
You might have noticed that my regular ruler also has a non-slip grip on it, so I definitely recommend that for any kind of tools that you're trying to rely on to remain in place to make sure that they have some kind of a non-slip grip to it.
So I hope you found this video helpful, and if you did please hit that LIKE button, and if you haven't subscribed yet, go ahead and SUBSCRIBE! It really helps out my channel and it lets YouTube know that you like videos like this and they'll give you more of them.
You can see I have my Hocus Pocus shirt on. It's almost Halloween and I love Halloween and Hocus Pocus. So if you like Hocus Pocus too, make sure that you give this video a LIKE and tell me down in the comments who your favorite character is! I hope you have a great day and I'll see you next Sunday!
Happy working!
♥ Chelsea
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