Measuring Sticks & Calipers

Two kinds of measurement a tape cannot take. Telescoping measuring sticks are a utility tool: a fiberglass stick extends to thirty-five or forty feet to measure pole height, conductor clearance, span and sag from the ground, without a bucket and without anything conductive going up near a live line. Fiberglass matters here for the same reason it matters in a hot stick, and the stick should be kept clean and dry for that reason too. Calipers work the opposite end of the scale. Spring-type outside calipers set to a diameter or a thickness and hold it, which is how you compare one part to another, check a shaft or a bar against a hole, or transfer a dimension to a rule when the part will not sit flat against one. There is no scale on the tool - you set it, then read it - and that is exactly why it works where a digital instrument is more trouble than it is worth. Check a telescoping stick for delamination before every use.