A ranging rod (or range rod) is a

surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ...

instrument used for marking the position of stations, and for sightings of those stations, as well as for ranging

straight line In geometry, a line is an infinitely long object with no width, depth, or curvature. Thus, lines are one-dimensional objects, though they may exist in two, three, or higher dimension spaces. The word ''line'' may also refer to a line segment ...

s. Initially these were made of light, thin and straight

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

, or of well seasoned wood such as

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family (biology), family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanic ...

or deodar. They were shod with iron at the bottom and surmounted with a flag about 250 mm square in size. Nowadays they are made of wood, metal or fibreglass. The rods are usually about 30 mm in diameter and 2 m or 3 m long, painted with alternating bands, such as red and white, red and yellow, or black and white, in lengths of 200 mm (i.e. one link length of metric chain), 500 mm, or one foot. These colours are used so that the rod can be properly sighted in case of long distance or bad weather. Ranging rods of greater length, e.g. 3 to 6 m, are called ranging or range poles, and are used for very long survey lines. Another type of ranging rod is known as an offset rod, which has no flag at the top. It is used for measuring small offsets from the survey line when the work is of an ordinary nature.Surveying by prof. Cl Kocher, page 20

Notes

When the ranging rods are limited, thin sticks 400 mm to 1 m length with white

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s in the cuts at tops can serve their purpose. Such sticks are pointed at the bottom and are cut from wood. These are called as whites.

References

{{reflist Surveying instruments Civil engineering

Notes

See also

References