I finally got time to open it up and play with it a bit. My initial impressions are positive. It has a sturdy feel and I think will hold up well to some abuse. From the pictures, I thought the tab on the back for inside measures was plastic, but it's actually metal. I think that's good; it will stand up better and longer.
Normally I have only trusted measuring tapes for cruder work. Cutting two by fours to frame a wall, figuring out how long to make a wire, etc. In the workshop, I've always favored straight rules as being more accurate. I've never really warmed up to the concept of the end of a measuring tape moving in a slot to account for inside and outside measuring.
This one may be changing my opinion. I have a cheap Stanley here on the desk and it's doesn't compare well. The Hultafors appears to encourage me to measure more accurately. It has clear metal tabs on the body to measure on the tape, where the Stanley just has the curved plastic of the body. The end of the tape on the Hultafors does not move, like mentioned above. I thought about this for a moment and realized it was made of much thinner metal so it didn't need to move.
For now, the Hultafors has me thinking of it's talmeter as a more precision measuring device than the traditional US based measuring tapes. Only time in the shop will tell and I still have to compare it's measuring to my best standards in the shop. Don't laugh, years a got I got a Grizzley hook ruler that was wrong by an 1/8 of an inch.
Hit post to quick, I wanted to add, I think I need one of the larger 6M tapes, but I don't have a source for that yet.
