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TheWoodWhisperer

b y mar c s p a g n u o l o

28 Popular Woodworking February 2009 photos by the author

Throw Away Your Tape Measure

youre at work on your latest masterpieceand everything seems to be going great. Ater

days o planning, measuring and cutting, you

are nally ready to do the glue-up. Just as you

start putting the pieces together, you come tothe painul realization that some parts just

dont t perectly. Maybe a stile is too short

or a panel is too loose.

How could this happen? You ollowed the

plan to the letter! But somehow, or some rea-

son, the t is less than optimal. Well dont

despair my riends. What many olks dont

realize is that there is a certain amount o error

naturally built into measuring, marking and

cutting. That error is something I like to call

being human. And until we can all get a

bionic-eye transplant, we have to gure outways to work around the error.

I we orget about the tape measure and let

the work itsel dictate the locations and relative

part sizes, we are able to build with a level o

condence and accuracy that we previously

thought was the stu o dreams.

A Path to SuccessMany people start their woodworking journey

by ollowing commercial plans. Unortunately,

plans tend to reinorce the misconception that

you are supposed to mill a bunch o separateparts ahead o time, and at the nal step every-

thing will come together just as planned.

The truth is, urniture parts are not mutu-

ally exclusive. At some point in the building

process, it is more accurate to take your mea-

surements directly rom the workpiece itsel

instead o relying on numbers in your plan.

So instead o cutting all my parts ahead o

time, I cut most o them ater some physical

restriction exists that dictates what those sizes

are supposed to be.

A simple example would be a bookcase.

I you cut all the parts ahead o time, there isa very good possibility that your shelves will

either be too long or too short. The depth o

the shel dados, the width o the back panel

and the thickness o the side stock are all vari-

ables that may change the actual dimensions

o the shelves. So it is critical that you do a dry

t beore cutting the shel stock, and take the

shel measurement directly rom the work-

piece itsel.

Tools from Scraps

One o the most eye-opening moments inmy woodworking career occurred when I

learned how to make and use a story stick.

A story stick is nothing more than a piece o

scrap wood used or marking physical events

in a project.

Heres an example that illustrates this con-

cept: Several years ago, I was commissioned

to build a large entertainment center acade in

ront o a set o decorative drywall display cub-bies. The challenge was accurately marking the

locations o the many vertical and horizontal

dividers. O course, none o these compart-

ments was evenly spaced and the dividers

between them were all dierent widths.

To make matters worse, the jobsite was

two hours rom my shop, and I had only one

opportunity to take measurements. There

was no room or error.

I could have used a tape measure, but that

would have been incredibly tedious. With so

many measurements to take and record, I amsure I would have made a mistake somewhere.

Trash the tape. Its not a suggestion that you go cold turkey on tape-measure usage. It is more a per-suasion to allow the project to provide measurements to avoid a higher potential of error.

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TheWoodWhisperer

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30 Popular Woodworking February 2009

So instead, I opted or a set o story sticks made

rom 14" birch plywood.

I simply laid one o the sticks on the foor

and pushed the end up against the adjoining

wall. I then used a pencil to mark the start and

stop points o each divider. I did the same in

the vertical dimension with a second stick. Ina matter o three minutes, I had an accurate

representation o a relatively complex set o

cubbies.

With the story sticks back in my shop, I

was able to construct the acade with a level

o condence I would not have had using the

tape-measure method.

A more current example o this tape mea-

sure-less system was ound in my shop as I was

writing this article. I was working on a small

decorative cabinet eaturing two simple inset

doors. The mortises or the hinges were routedinto the case sides earlier in the process, and

the challenge was to then accurately transer

the location o those hinges to the doors.

Further complicating things was the act

that I wanted a116" reveal around all sides o

the door, so it was important that the hinges

be placed in exactly the r ight positions. O

course, I could have just taken a ew careul

measurements, done a dance or the wood-

working gods and hoped or the best. But there

was a more accurate and simple, i not slightly

Neanderthal, solution.By using shims to center the door within

the case opening, I was able to directly trans-

er the centerline o each mortise rom the

case side to the door. With two simple pencil

strokes, I had the marks I needed to rout the

mortises in the door.

A Path to a Perfect FitAnother important aspect in the Throw Away

Your Tape Measure building style is the act o

cutting itsel. When I rst started woodwork-

ing, I thought that one day I would be good

enough to make cuts consistently on a pencil

mark. I soon realized that even i my cut was

dead on, my mark could very well be o and

the piece would not t anyway.

So I quickly adopted a cut-to-t method-

ology. That is, I nd it better to cut my parts

slightly oversized, and careully nibble away

the stock until the t is perect. It may take aew more minutes to do this, but an air-tight

t will be your reward and there is very little

risk o cutting your parts too short.

Many o you may be surprised to know that

you are already using techniques based on the

Throw Away Your Tape Measure principles.

Every time you use a stop block or a repeated

cut, a template to make exact copies, a set o

tails to mark your pins (or vice versa), or even

spacers to arrange a set o drawer slides, you

are exercising this concept.

Keep in mind that none o this inormationis The Wood Whisperers bright idea. I am just

sharing techniques that were gleaned rom

more knowledgeable woodworkers with years

o eld experience. And believe me, weve only

scratched the surace here. My hope is that this

quick introduction will inspire you to think

critically about how you process your project

parts. Perhaps the next time you pull out thattape measure to take a critical measurement,

youll recall some o these ideas and realize that

there just might be a very simple solution that

will save you time and stress and increase

your accuracy to boot! PW

Marc is a professional woodworker as well as the creator

and host of The Wood Whisperer (thewoodwhisperer.

com). The Wood Whisperer (an instructional Internet

woodworking show) represents Marcs three passions:

woodworking, technology and education.

Not in inches or feet. Two story sticks were all it took to determine sizeand length, as well as posit ion, of each piece of this entertainment centerfacade.

On the level. This small story stickwas used to position the shelves inthis cabinet, ensuring the shelveswere equally spaced.

Quick, accurate locator. A fewshims hold the door and allow fordirect transfer of the mortise center-lines from masking tape to door.

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