I came back later and saw what had happened. It was late so I backed up and straddled the car over the yellow lines and opened the door to grab it. I felt like such a fool when I got in the house and had to explain why I was parked in the middle of the road in front of the house.

RobC

These days even the 3ft sticks are warped, gotta check em all before use.

Don't fergit the bucket ful of charcoal sticks tied to the backrail of the swing-stage!

I don't much miss swingin scaffolds!

Another use no one mentioned is we cut notches in the ends and drill a hole, insert string, tie big knot in the end and draw it tight making a bow that we can adjust for laying out arched lettering on trucks. We have the bigger bow for 4x8s.

I have some that have handles on them.

Often yardsticks could become dear and get so dirty that the numerals were no longer readable. We'd make chalks mark on it to give us the stroke widths and heights.

On time I started laying out this wall from one end and Bennie from the other. Things didn't match when we met cause he was using a 32 inch yard stick and didn't know it.

It was a standard item for every sign person to hold a yardstick and know vertical anywhere. Ah....Yardstick letters!

[ October 16, 2001: Message edited by: timi NC ]

I went to the store and picked up 15 yard sticks over the past spring.

Some were free, and others I bought at Menards for 44 cents each. Now you got to PAY for their advertising! Gheesh!

Anyway, to make a long story longer and even more boreing.... I used them at baseball practice one night for the 12 year old kids.

It seems they were a little unknowing how to spread their legs apart in the batters box for a proper stance.

I made each of them take a yard stick, measure the width of their shoulders, then they had to place the yard stick on the ground and place their feet on the stick twice the distance of thier shoulders. Some were real surprised just how far those feet have to be spread.

If she understood why I didn't use a tape measurer for the whole job, she'd prolly be squattin and crawlin around all the steel thingies that stick outta the nose on that puppy and gettin the check too!

Don't let me forget the chalk line though, the doors down the side aren't even most of the time. And that's where most of the copy goes hahaha!

Mike, I'm glad you started this thread!

I'm anxious to seee if somebody has made a yardstick holster yet. Do you know how many times I've run circles lookin for one I laid down, gorfotting where it was?

[ October 16, 2001: Message edited by: Linda Silver Eagle ]

Linda, I'm one of those old gezeers that always loses track of everything. My shop had two rooms and I would lose a yardstick or a pencil walking from one room to the other or go to get one of each and get one and forget what else I went in there for. I never break yardsticks for stir sticks, I use stir sticks for that, so I wound up with a lot of yardsticks and varnished all the good, straight ones - put nails all around in the shop about every 10 feet or so and also attached a little can of pencils right next to it on the wall. I could always find them close by then.

Less nails that way...hay do ya think i oughta take the contraption off first when i go to nailin on it?

I can't make it thru the day with out a yard stick...If I have one I have 50...there is a half dozen in every corner.

I still layout with a yardstick.(even vinyl)

I use them to run lines (down the edge of the lettering bench)

I have one that has holes every inch and 1/2" so I can use it as a compass.

They are great for finding the center of anything
(just measure in from each end then divide the last center measurement by turning it at an angle to get an equal number divisible by 2)

Use it as a calculator to divide panels into equal portions or measuring lines and negative space for charts and multiple lined sign panels.
(neat trick when you know it)

Use them as a triangle by taping them down to a piece of showcard...establishing an angle you want to repeat on a line of (dare I say it)hand laid out copy.

I keep several yardsticks that are equipped with a dowell (slit and glued to the end) and use it to locate correct measurements on vehicles by catching the dowell in the edge of a body line then marking the measurement...(no more crooked graphics on Ford vans)I've given several of these away at letterhead meets (I often wonder if anyone finds them useful) I love em!

There is always at least 6 sticks in my truck.

I 've bowed 'em...slit them...cut them down to fit inside the glass area on store front doors.

I've stirred paint with them used them on site as door jams.

And one of my favorite things in the whole world is to hand someone an old yardstick with plenty of graphite on the edges (form years of use, drawing lines with a pencil)and then watching them as they throw it half way across the shop
when the Electro-pounce travels up that gaphite and kicks their ass! I love that!

Show me someone using a tape measure and I'll show you someone thats wasting time.

I've never had any use for metal yard sticks (they scratch things and get dings in em.

In the old production shops everyone had their own favorite stick it was usually sanded smooth...painted or stained with a color code along the back edge (advertising area) and coated with clear lacquer)Woe be the guy caught coveting or using someone elses stick!

Lol...you brought back some good memories...but the one I remember best was being an apprentice lettering on old "metal flats" (sheet metal signs with wood frames...a precurser to MDO) and having a Journeyman sneak up behind it and smack it with a yardstick to test your nerves...after a while you never flinch again!Mostly because you get tired of cleaning up the paint you sling so generously about the room...and partly because you get tired of being the brunt of the joke!

God... I miss those days.