Accurate marking and measuring are essential in any do-it-yourself job so invest in a quality tape measure and follow these clever tips.
- Select your pencil with care when you're marking measurements on wood. A pencil with a hard lead (marked 1H or higher) will score the wood surface surprisingly deeply, leaving a mark that has to be sanded or even planed off. Use an HB pencil on wood instead. You'll have to sharpen it more often, but the marks it leaves can be removed easily with a soft eraser.
- A proper carpenter's pencil is the best buy; its flat sides mean it won't roll off the bench, as a round one will. Sharpen it regularly with your utility knife.
- Mark 10 millimetre (3/8 inch) increments on your carpenter's pencil so that you can make rough measurements quickly. It's more accurate than estimating, yet faster than pulling out a tape measure or ruler.
- Next time you have a lot of repeated measuring to do, such as marking out pickets for a fence, mark the measurements on a stick or spare panel. Then just lay that stick on your bottom rail and transfer the measurements. It's a lot easier than trying to use a tape measure on a windy day.
- If you are cutting several pieces to the same size, cut the first to the required measurement using your tape measure or ruler and then use the first cut piece as your measuring stick to cut all the others.
- To mark equal segments, angle a ruler across the work. Place the zero-point of the ruler on one edge of the work, and adjust the angle so that a measurement divisible by the number of segments needed lies at the other end of the work.
- Another clever way to mark equal segments is with a pair of compasses. Set the points at the desired width of your segments; then swing one point in front of the other to walk the compasses along a straightedge set on the material you're segmenting.
- Any true straightedge can be used to check that a surface is flat. Place a level, a metal rule or the sole of a hand plane – with the blade retracted – across the wood and rotate it. Any light visible beneath the edge is a sign that the surface is bowed (raised in the centre) or cupped (hollow).
- If you're trying to measure where a tape is hard to read, run two thin pieces of wood over the distance you want to measure, clamp them together (or just mark where one overlaps the other) and remove, then measure the length of the pieces of wood when they're overlapped with your tape.
Follow these clever tips and you'll be better able to accurately mark and measure on your do-it-yourself projects.
