How Do You Read An Architects Ruler?
An architect’s ruler, also called an architect’s scale or scale stick, allows you to easily interpret scale drawings. These drawings maintain the proportion of an object’s actual size at a specific ratio. For example, a house blueprint might be drawn in 1/4-inch scale, which means that 1/4 inch in the drawing equal 1 foot in the real house. These drawings are as precise as possible to allow architects, engineers and construction workers to accurately build or remodel based on the plans. A standard three-sided scale stick offers 12 different scales to simplify conversion of a variety of drawing types, but flat versions are also available offering two to four different scales. Locate the scale on the drawing you are trying to interpret. It is usually in a box with other information about the drawing, and will look something like: 1/2″ = 1′. Check the ends of your architect’s ruler to find the scale that matches your drawing–in this example, 1/2. Lay the scale on the drawing so the scale
