Learning how to properly use a ruler is the basis for just about everything involved with laying out a stage, scenery, lighting, etc. This video shows how to use a standard 12 inch ruler upon a full-scale ruler worksheet.

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Hi there, welcome to my tutorial on using my ruler worksheet. Here we have a full sized worksheet. It’s got various lines on it with one example shown there. We’re going to do some close up work. I have here a standard imperial inch measurement ruler it’s 12 inches long as you’ll see I’ve got the whole ruler right here and I’m used on my piece paper. This worksheet is available on my website. There’s a link in the description and there should be one popping up on your window.

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Now, here we go. So using a ruler, we have all these measurements starting from, well, zero. And then we’ve got one inch and two inch and three inch and so on. And in the middle we have a lot of small lines that we’re about to deal with. So this measurement here is five and a half inches long, according to the key that I’ve left here. But if we look at the measurement itself, we start from zero and we go out to five.

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So here we have between the five and the six. We have the longest line here, which represents five and a half inches. So the inches are broken up into inches. And then we have a half inch there and a half inch here and a half inch over there. We also have quarter lines.

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There are four quarters to an inch. So we have one quarter, two quarters, three quarters and four quarters. We also have eighths. So we have four and 1/8th. If there would be two eighths, there’s three four eight five eight six eights, seven eighths and eight eighths. So there are the all are in between those. The tiniest line are sixteenths. So we have four and one sixteenth or four and two sixteenth, which is also one eighth, three sixteenth four 16th, which is also quarter five six three eighths, seven eight sixteenths which is a 1/2″ nine ten eleven twelve which is three quarters, 13, 14, 15, 16 sixteenths, which is the full inch.

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So we’ve got from zero to five and then a half inch. So that’s why it’s as five and a half inches. Let’s take this measure, the next line that doesn’t have a measurement written on it. So we go from zero one two three. And ends up in this line here, which is the quarter marks the 1/2″ inches the longest between the inches, that quarter marks the second longest. So that’s how I can quickly tell that it’s a quarter mark and it’s on one quarter, two quarters, which is also half an inch, three quarters.

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So we would write that down over here, three, and three-Quarters of an inch. And for good measure, I like drawing lines that show me how long the line is from my drafting days, so I would measure like that and like that. Now, whether you’re going to do this on your worksheets, it depends on how detailed you’re going to get and the purpose that you’re making your worksheets happen for yourself. And let’s pick another one. Let’s put this one down here.

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So this one, we start at 1″ or zero one inch, two inch, two and a quarter, two and a half. And then we’ve got two small lines is just sixteenths or one slightly longer one. That’s an eighth. So two and a two and a half plus an eighth. Well, we know we have four eighths in a 1/2″, so this must be five eighths. So this is two inches. Or two and five eighths inches. here we go.

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Measuring a box. So now this box here. We’ve got one inch a quarter. Three eighths. So this would be seven 16th, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, sixteenths, but if you can see, it’s ever so slightly longer than seven sixteenths mark. So they here we have 32nds. They’re tiny. So to measure this and you do is going to move this over. To the two inch mark.

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They’re little backwards, watch this, from two to one, it’s 1″, and then we have these tiny lines here. So we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 30 sixteenths. So that’s one and 15/32nds. Right here. So it’s 1″ in 15/32 inches. And that’s what these tiniest, tiniest lines here, and this is a pretty detailed ruler. My next video, I’m going to work on the other side and work with these millimeters on the next worksheet that’s in millimeters.

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So if you like this video, please, like and subscribe. And we’ll see you again soon. Thanks.