All woodworkers are told, “Measure twice, cut once.”
The reality is:
- Measure five times, get three different answers, take the average.
- Check against drawings three times.
- Realize you have the wrong drawing.
- Do mental math on fractions.
- Remind your self that on 1/4 plus 1/2 isn’t 3/2, it’s 3/4.
- Do the math on your phone’s calculator while trying to remember fraction to decimal conversions (1/2 = .5, 1/4 = .25, 1/8 = something).
- Resolve to start using the metric system.
- Cut part 1/8 inch too long.
- Try cutting 1/8 inch off part, but really cut 1/4 inch off.
- Tell people you thought the whole project was 1/2 inch too long so you shortened the whole thing by an inch.
More shop stuff next week,
Andrew
love this, so true!
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I’ve always found it that way.
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First of all, thank you for making me laugh out loud. Second, your scenario (with some modification) also applies to a certain young woman trying to make her own dress for an 8th grade dance (except without the phone calculator…) in 1967. OMG – it was brutal!
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It applies there too! 😉
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Ugh. sounds so frustrating but true. That would be me for sure.
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True, frustrating and sometimes entertaining to watch.
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Lucky Heather. Or cats.
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So that’s why they were called Vulgar Fractions in school. Thank God for metrics.
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Metric makes something easier.
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Somehow I knew you were a genius. 😊
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Bahahaha!!! Sounds like one of my projects; except I was never smart enough to pretend I meant to do it that way. The only good thing to come out of my painful career as an interior designer was the fact that the decimal conversions for fractions are permanently lodged in my brain. Sometimes you win.
As our neighbour used to say: “Dang it, I’ve cut that board twice and it’s still too short!”
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I’m going to have to use what your neighbor said, happens to me all the time.
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There was a period in my life when I did a lot of sewing, and yes, those decimal skills remain!
What I don’t understand though is why we used them so much and woodworkers didn’t. Or were we just better at remembering them? 🤔
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Generally, if you get to with 1/8 of an inch in woodworking, you can fill the gap with filler, paint over it and skip the math. Harder to do that with fabric.
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Good point — thought I’ve been known to add trim to cover slight ‘oopsies’. They showed my creative side. 😉
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My recall came from constant repetition – I worked as a CAD draftsman and it was much faster for me to type a decimal value than a fractional one. After doing that for 8 hours a day 5 days a week for a few years, those decimals will never leave my brain. I might not remember what I ate three hours ago, but I’ll never forget that 5/8 = 0.625.
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In most machine shops I’ve worked in they always have a “decimal equivalents” posted on a wall, so all you have to do is go look. For reasons I don’t understand, woodworkers don’t post that chart in their workshops. And CAD work I did was all in decimals, because the crew in the electronics fab area didn’t use fractions. I am doomed. 😉
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Ha. Someone has been spying on me.
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I got you figured out. 😉
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One of my Dad’s favorite sayings….my husband and I repeat it over and over again every year.
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My shop teachers drilled this into us in the 7th grade.
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On HGTV’s show ‘Home Town’, the Scotsman has a sign in his carpentry shop that reads – “Measure once, cuss twice.”
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I love it! I need a sign like that.
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Well… um…You ARE a carpenter
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oh, yeah, there is that. 😉
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Where theory meets reality. Yep.
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Theory and reality exist in two different parallel universes and rarely co-exist.
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Lol. All I can say is, I don’t know how I managed before computers. Calculators are no good if you don’t know which keys to push and which numbers to enter.
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Someday I hope to be able to point my cell phone at the project and say, “Siri, how long should this board be?” and Siri will tell me.
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It could be worse, Andrew. At least you are not doing dental work…
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I’ve always offered to dental work for my coworkers – you’d be surprised how often they decline.
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Funny!
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Having been married to a builder and hearing the swear words when the measure twice advice doesn’t work, I loved this post!!
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Glad you like it. When people tell the “measure twice” thing I always have to resist doing bodily harm to the speaker.
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Making my head spin
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welcome to my shop. 😉
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