If you need to find the diameter of a pipe or a pipeline, here’s a 5 minute crash course..
- Buy a pipe diameter tape measure.
- Notice that one side is probably just a regular inch tape measure.
- The other side is also in inches, but it seems to be stretched out about 3 times longer than normal. It’s actually stretched out by a factor of pi (3.14159). This is the diameter tape side.
- Use the diameter tape side for this lesson.
- Clean off the pipe of any dirt or other debris.
- Simply wrap the tape around the pipe, keeping the diameter side out, so you can read it.
- Note where the zero mark lines up on the tape. That gives you the outside diameter of the pipe.
- It may be hard to read the markings. They are probably not marked the same as a regular tape. They may be in 64ths of an inch or 100ths of an inch. Either way, you have just learned how to use a diameter tape!
