Jim Koepke
12-16-2009, 2:04 AM
Measure twice cut once is something oft' said.
For some reason, no matter how careful my measuring was there would still be some little difference between pieces. Of course over time I would get better and usually it was just a few shavings here or there to get things to match. I have another problem that likely haunts others, more on that later.
So recently while making a prototype on a project, a four fold ruler was used just for a change. My measuring was not exact, but things came out closer than with my usual tape measure or yard stick.
Anyway, some fire wood that was cut by a neighbor came out being a couple of inches too long for our wood stove. So, to get things right a scrap of wood was used to mark how long pieces can be and still fit in the stove and the rounds that are too big will be cut when the time comes.
So, using the stick put it into me to try using a story stick for cutting off a bunch of pieces for the project on the bench instead of measuring more than a dozen pieces to the same size each time.
More of a revelation than an epiphany, but it was eye opening to end up with that many pieces all cut to the same size within a plane shaving or so. It was also amazing to be able to quickly see where the best pieces were to be cut from the ones that would have more than an inch of two of scrap.
It was actually quite a bit faster than pulling out the tape for each marking.
Especially with my mild dyslexia, it sure cuts down on the wrong side of number errors.
Anyone else have story stick tales? Anyone else use them and have some tips to make them more useful?
jim
For some reason, no matter how careful my measuring was there would still be some little difference between pieces. Of course over time I would get better and usually it was just a few shavings here or there to get things to match. I have another problem that likely haunts others, more on that later.
So recently while making a prototype on a project, a four fold ruler was used just for a change. My measuring was not exact, but things came out closer than with my usual tape measure or yard stick.
Anyway, some fire wood that was cut by a neighbor came out being a couple of inches too long for our wood stove. So, to get things right a scrap of wood was used to mark how long pieces can be and still fit in the stove and the rounds that are too big will be cut when the time comes.
So, using the stick put it into me to try using a story stick for cutting off a bunch of pieces for the project on the bench instead of measuring more than a dozen pieces to the same size each time.
More of a revelation than an epiphany, but it was eye opening to end up with that many pieces all cut to the same size within a plane shaving or so. It was also amazing to be able to quickly see where the best pieces were to be cut from the ones that would have more than an inch of two of scrap.
It was actually quite a bit faster than pulling out the tape for each marking.
Especially with my mild dyslexia, it sure cuts down on the wrong side of number errors.
Anyone else have story stick tales? Anyone else use them and have some tips to make them more useful?
jim