What's in a Name

[Jim Koepke]

Between projects and taking a bit of a break. While thinking about something to build for my significant other came up with the idea to build a pair of dividers.

Looking for these on the internet came up with a lot of different names for the same thing.

For some they are dividers others call them calipers.

Fibonacci dividers

Golden ratio calipers

Phi calculator

and a few more.

So just to do a test run some scrap ash was cut into strips, drilled and assembled:

299812

Learned a few things to make the next set easier to make with a few refinements.

jtk

[bridger berdel]

this is interesting to me. keep us informed- I'd even like to play along. got any links for the pattern you used?

[Jim Koepke]

this is interesting to me. keep us informed- I'd even like to play along. got any links for the pattern you used?

http://www.goldennumber.net/do-it-yourself/

Here is another one that could possibly built with the same dimensions and a different shape:

http://www.goldenmeancalipers.com/

There are some links on that page to a few others with different design.

I used brass rivets. The wood should have been just a bit thicker. The rivets are a touch long for this application. Will add a little wood next time.

I used a large gouge to cut the points.

jtk

[Michael Ray Smith]

Hey, that's pretty cool, Jim.

[Jim Koepke]

Just finished my second set of these:

317518

My first set is on the bottom, new set on the top. The new set will be taken to the farmers market hopefully someone will absolutely have to have it. It is a bit tighter than the original. (hard not to be)

The build this time was better planned. An bunch of wood was salvaged from a trash out on an old home a friend bought and is trying to refurbish. This came from a countertop cutting board. Not sure, but I think it may be maple of some sort. The wood was a bunch of 1X1-1/2" strips laminated together. They have been easy to break apart with a froe, splitting along the glue line.

A piece was cut a little longer than needed for the longest legs. The holes were laid out and drilled with a #38 bit. This was chosen because it is a tight fit with some 6d box nails for trial fitting. The top end was sawn and rounded over. Then the pieces were ripped out on the band saw. Each piece was planed, shaped, sanded and then finished with shellac before the final drilling. The joints were marked and the rivet head positions were marked before removing the nails.

The counter bore for the rivet heads was done on a drill press. Then the through holes for the rivets were drilled. A #21 was a bit tight, so a #20 bit was run through after by hand.

On to the next thing.

jtk