Been playing around with the Stanley No. 61 folding rule and the chart that somebody
here posted a link to. First thing that was noticed is the partial inches are decimal.
Would a carpenter back in the day have even had a decimal rule? Or was this more
likely an “eyeball” measurement?
One thing that I have worked on a little bit over the years is writing VB6 programs
mainly to help me do calcs for survey drafting. But some of the routines can used in the
woodchuck shop. I have had one program that converts fractional inches into decimal on
my desktop for some time.
When looking at that chart of angles and distances it occurred to me go back into that program
and add decimal to fractional capability. With some “now how do I dimension a variable”
etc. this was accomplished.
Don’t know how much the No. 61 rule will be used to layout angles; just fun to learn some about
yet another part of the immense range of tools/devices that have come down through time.
Besides, am still trying to carefully clean the 61 up so it can be more easily read.
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