Patent ID: 8359759

Claim:
A coupler for removably coupling together unmodified forensic scales to form a coupled scale with at least two of the unmodified forensic scales being coupled as straight ruler arms extending from a scale joint that defines a fixed angle A about a vertex therebetween, and wherein the coupler holds the coupled scales in a way that maintains an accurate fixed angle A at the scale joint, and maintains measurement accuracy of scale markings across the scale joint; the coupler comprising: at least two tracks, each track comprising: a longitudinally extending lower surface; two laterally opposed parallel edge walls extending up from the lower surface and spaced apart by a track width W′ that closely fits a standard forensic scale width W; holding tabs that extend laterally inward from both edge walls to define an upper surface spaced above the lower surface by a track height T′ that closely fits a standard forensic scale thickness T; and an open end longitudinally distal to a track inner end defined by a registration stop wall; and the coupler further comprising: a fixed angle junction where a first and a second one of the tracks are joined such that: the lower surfaces of the tracks are co-planar; an edge wall of the first track and an edge wall of the second track are aligned to define a vertex of the fixed angle A; and at the vertex the registration stop at the inner end of each of the first and second tracks is aligned with an edge wall of the other one of the tracks.