/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Now I don't have a lathe yet, but having a look at this neat-looking tape measure I thought it looked like a nice simple wood-turning project with which to get used to speeds and feeds. Since this thing doesn't seem mass produced I decided there must be some sort of tape measure kit that you build your own housing for. After scouring the web I only found cheap plastic-case tape measures, nothing at all without a case, not even bulk. I find this a little surprising since there's probably a market for this, like there is in pen inserts.

The tape measure doesn't lock; it's just got a piece of electrical tape to stop the spring retracting the measuring tape. A locking one would be more practical, but I'm not picky.

Has anyone else found one or had this problem before? Thoughts?