Tips for Woodworking Measurements and Layouts

ah I don't think there's a woodworker out there that doesn't understand the pain and frustration that comes with accidentally taking a poor measurement and ending up with a miscut part now measuring twice and cutting once is certainly a sage bit of advice that most of us learn however in my 35 plus years of woodworking experience I've managed to pick up quite a few other measuring and layout tricks that I'd like to share with you in this video the best first step you can take towards assuring that your workshop measurements are precise is to compare all your measuring tools to one another here I'm using a piece of plywood as an end stop and I'm just budding my rules of various lengths and yardstick and so on against there and then I just compare the scales to one another to make sure they match it's not uncommon to find at least one rule that doesn't match the others and the best medicine here is to just get rid of it now also you'll want to check your various tri squares and triangles pretty much anything that has an incremented scale on it against your other rules and once again you're just looking for a perfect match here of course that includes your tape measures don't be surprised if you have an older tape measure if it doesn't match your other scales the sliding stops on these are notorious for wearing out here you can see this one's off by about 1/32 of an inch speaking of tape measures here's a little pitfall that many of us have been trapped by now if you have an older tape measure and you know it's inaccurate measured using the end stop it's tempting to simply slide it over and align the one inch mark and use that to then lay out the length of a part that's going to be cut so here for instance I want a 12 inch part so it kind of makes sense to mark the 12 inch line but you can predict what's going to happen when I come back from the saw magically 1 inch is gone because I forgot to add one inch to the overall length of the measurement before you can mark a precise distance on a part with a regular rule of course you have to align the end of the rule with the end of the workpiece well if you want to eliminate that step simply switch to a hook rule hook rule has a nice little hook on it that automatically aligns with the end of the workpiece and allows you to mark with confidence I like to use a mechanical pencil for most of my layout work because unlike a regular taper pointed wood pencil it produces a line of consistent thickness now a small downside of using a pencil to mark joinery like this mortise is that you have to then visually align a chisel or other tool with the graphic on the surface in cases like this I prefer to switch to a marking knife now the knife run along the edge of a square or rule makes an absolutely thin and precise line much more precise than any pencil line and a great advantage to having this in size groove is it makes it super easy to physically align the tip of a chisel or edge of a saw blade with the the knife line that you've marked now when you're trying to do precise work with a marking knife it's best not to use a rule or scale with printed on graphics but instead switch to a rule that has machined graduations you can feel these when you run your your nail over them now let's say you're trying to mark out a very precise distance that has 64 or 32nd of an inch increments the tip of the knife will actually lock into those little increments allowing you to position it very accurately mistake that's unfortunately all too easy to make when you're laying out a line or a area to machine on a part somewhere in the middle is once you mark the line and you take it to your saw and cut it you're apt to end up with a part that's exactly one saw blade thickness too small because you cut on the wrong side of the line so simple solution just make a mark you can be an arrow a squiggle whatever it is but it's going to remind you on which side of the line the waste lies another common problem that crops up when you're measuring parts and need those measurements is of course to forget what those measurements are so using a tape measure that has a note pad on it is a very handy way of recording those measurements and then having them handy when you get to your table saw or cut off saw whenever you want to check or transfer measurements from a scale drawing to let's say to create a cut list don't use a regular ruler it's just too much of a pain in the butt to have to convert from quarter-inch scale to to full size measurements instead use an architect's rule these have several different scales and then you can pick the exact one that matches your drawing in this case Porter inch equals one inch I like to mark the scale I'm going to use with a piece of tape because it's real easy to flip that triangular rule over and and use the wrong scale this way you can read measurements directly off the scale so you know exactly how long parts need to be measuring inside dimensions of course can be done with the tape measure on the edge of the part let's say you want to check inside even if you've got a tape measure with an accurate - and stop you still have to remember to add on the length of the body of the tape measure for more accurate measurements I prefer to use two different scales one eye but against one side of the part and the other against the other and then I add the length of one - the amount of overlap with the other one here I'm adding 12 to 3 and a half showing that I have a 15 and a half inch inside and I can slide this up and down and check that dimension anywhere inside that box you can also use two scales in the same way to check the diagonals of course checking them as the sure way to make sure that a box is square if the diagonals match you know that basically that box is square whenever possible I like to eliminate the need for taking measurements entirely by marking parts directly from an assembly in this case if I need a cross member in the Box I slide it to the edge and Mark the part directly now here's the neat trick instead of cutting that part directly on the line like to make my first cut just a little fat on the line so the part is probably going to be just a skosh too long left um watch what we're going to do here I'm going to take the part back to the box and indeed it turns out to be just a bit too long so now here's the cool trick I'm going to place the part there I'm going to lower the saw blade and just press the part against the blade to deflect it slightly then raise the blade start it up and take my cut that should just remove a hair that's necessary in order for a perfect fit and of course if the part was still a little too long I could repeat the process until the part was perfect it can be really frustrating working with materials like plywood that aren't really as thick as they're supposed to be for instance here 3/4 inch plywood that's about three and a half 64's thinner than 3/4 of an inch so instead of using math to calculate let's say the top and bottom of a 10 inch wide box just take two scraps of the plywood and clamp them tightly together now take your ruler or tape measure now set the mark with the final outside distance in this case 10 inches on the edge of one scrap and the edge of the other scrap will show you the exact length of the part you'll need to cut the next time you need to add up two dimensions that contain fractions don't use math use this simple method using two identical rules first find the first dimension 1 a 9/16 on rule a now line up the 0 end of rule B with that dimension next find your second number 2 and 7/8 on rule B the mark opposite from it on rule a equals the sum of the two numbers here's another cool no math method you can use to divide a part into equal segments let's say divide this board into five equal segments I'm going to align the 0 end of my rule with one end one edge of the part and now I'm going to pick a number that's divisible by the number of segments in this case 10 and align it with the other edge of the part and I'm going to go along and I'm going to make marks at 2 4 6 & 8 keeping my marks nice and short and that is going to show me exactly where I need to to mark let's say to make flutes on this part or dedos whatever it is this is a great way to divide a part without having to do any fussy math calculations

Channel: WoodworkersJournal

Views: 1,065,415

Rating: 4.875165 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, woodworker, measure, mark, layout, measuing tape, ruler, square

Id: cDcrs0btn6Q

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 22 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/SnickleTitts]

I love videos like this, only problem is I never can remember the tips when I need them!

[u/NotElizaHenry]

Hm, I guess in addition to never having enough clamps, I'm also never going to have enough rulers.

[u/jstad]

That two rule trick for fractions is worth a try when my calculator isn't handy.

[u/hambob]

Some really good tips and tricks!

[u/cyphersk8]

I need a tip on where to find my damn pencil when I need it. I swear, the thing just disappears, along with every other pencil I've used that day.

[u/lathe_down_sally]

For the love of God, trim your fingernails.