Over the years, I found myself in many situations in which I had to measure between two walls, like above a toilet, or the inside of a cabinet, between stair walls and so on and needed dead on measurements. As most know, bending a tape requires guess work.
A friend had steps that were only about nine inches deep and, over the years, several people had fallen going down them. Rebuilding the stairs would have been a major undertaking involving load bearing walls and other complications. As an alternative, we decided to experiment by adding 1-1/2" thick, 2" deep bull nosed trim I fabricated to the top front of each of the steps.
I wanted them to fit very tightly. Rather than measure to a point from each side, I built a sliding gauge I could adjust to the width of each step, lock in place and measure. I worked perfectly and allowed me to get tight joints.
Since it worked so well, I've made several other gauges that perform the same function, but for shorter and longer distances. The one in the picture, below, is twenty-four inches long and will expand to about forty inches.
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