These are submissions to the 2020 Marine Fabricators Conference Tools, Tips and Tricks contest.
Tip 1
Clever solo measuring trick
Installing a snap stud on your tape measure can help you simplify measuring when
you’re working alone.
Being that I do most of my measuring alone, I’ve always struggled with getting the end of the tape measure to stay onto a snap stud. I finally came up with a simple solution: I drilled out the end rivet, slightly opened the hole up a bit, and put a cap and hard action socket in the rivet’s place. It isn’t at the very end, but I’m now able to measure much more easily. The embarrassing part is that it took me close to 20 years to come up with this very simple idea.
Chris O’Mara, Whipstitch Marine Canvas
This was the First Place Don Racine winner in the 2020 MFA Conference Tools, Tips and Tricks contest.
Tip 2
One ruler to rule them all
An easy-to-use Alvin rolling parallel ruler works great for creating lines and different shapes.
An Alvin rolling parallel ruler works great for drawing all types of circles, angles, curves, straight lines, etc. It comes in 6” and 12” lengths and is available online and in office supply and craft stores.
TEXTILES.ORG 
