Square N Tape

One thing that has amazed me over the year is the creativity of the American people.  I know I don’t have that type of mind, so when I look at a tape measure I see a tape measure.  Where other people have done some pretty cool things to the tape over the years, such as the Century Tracer XL.  Well this time someone took the standard tape measure and added some pretty cool features then named it the Square N Tape.

You can buy this system two ways.  Either buy it with the tape measure or buy just the Square N Tape and attach it to your favorite tape.  Well I guess before I start talking about how you can buy it, I am sure you want to know what makes this tape so special.  Basically the Square N Tape tries to eliminate having multiple tools in your pouch like a speed square and other items.  As you can see by the pictures there are plenty of markings to make quick marks for headers, stud layouts and more.  If you check out the video below you can see just how many different items you can conquer when using this tool.  The notepad is actually a pretty cool idea.  We needed either an eraser or to wet our finger in order to clean it off.  Also it only works with pencil as pen stays on.  The biggest thing I found myself using this for was the straight line feature which is very cool.  Once I made my marking, I could just lay the tape on its side and make a straight line for the cut.  I know framers will get a lot more use out of this because of the degree markings and cutout notches.

Three things I would like to see improved with this item:

1. The markings are the same color as the tool, so it was hard to see at times.  We think the markings should be a contrast to the tool, so you can identify it quicker and easier.
2. The marking indentations could be a little more prevalent.
3. The tool could be a little bigger, which we know isn’t always the best, but at our 45 degree mark, the tape measurement lock was in the way when we tried to make marks.

The idea and concept are cool.  Once you get used to using it you can fly through measurements.  We like the idea and think this is a practical invention contractors can use.  When we were doing our basement project, we used this tape a lot for marking off 2×4 for cuts and it saved a lot of time.

We were going to create a video, but the inventor, Tom, created one that shows it so much better than we can.  So we decided to just show his video which you can see on YouTube – Square N Tape.  I think this is an older video as in the video he applied glue to this device to attach it to his tape.  I noticed on our sample there was adhesive with a peel sticker to attach it.