Lost Art Press is going to have a booth at the Woodworking in America show this year, Sept. 30-Oct. 2 in Covington, Ky. And as Eddie Murphy once said: “We need eye-catcher.”
So I’ve begun sketching out some booth furniture, including a set of wooden dividers that are almost 6’ tall. I based them on a vintage pair that I have in my shop at home. I don’t think they were manufactured – they look like the work of a blacksmith.
SketchUp is the perfect tool for this sort of silliness. I put the dividers on my scanner, took a 300 dpi scan of them and then imported that photo into SketchUp. Using the “Scale” tool under “Tools” in the menubar, I enlarged the photo until it was almost 6’ tall.
Then I just drew shapes over the photo. Less than 20 minutes later, I had templates that I could print out full-size on my cheesy laser printer and tape together. Then it’s all work on the band saw, followed by some drawknife and spokeshave work.
I’m trying hard to think how I could actually use these dividers – my plan is to make them a fully functional tool. Perhaps we can use them to step off where we are going to plant some more boxwoods in the yard.
— Christopher Schwarz
You can use them to measure your children’s height. If you make an eleven foot sector, you can use your giant dividers to figure out how tall they’ll be when full-grown.
There is a use for such large dividers. I happened to be visiting England the weekend of the Queen’s birthday and trooping of the colors. A sergeant, in resplendent red coat and bearskin hat, marched down the edge of the parade route spinning a pair of large dividers marking of the interval and location where members of the honor guard were to stand. As I recall the apex of the dividers was about four feet off the ground. I don’t recall the interval but it was at least three feet and was probably six feet. This would result in a pair of dividers with legs four to five feet long.
I believe that’s a Pace Stick – a Google of which opens up a whole wunnerful world of polished wood and shiny brass fittings.
Boxwoods are to landscaping like particle board is to furniture. Don’t do it!
Well there goes the formal English garden idea!
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By coincidence, Ebay UK has today a ‘huge’ set of calipers on sale from a boat-yard in Great Yarmouth that is being dismantled.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vintage-huge-boat-building-calipers-/190536385191?pt=UK_Hand_Tools_Equipment&hash=item2c5cda82a7
It’s not clear from the description or picture what their actual dimensions are but here is a suggested use for something this size.
Perhaps large dividers (easliy knocked out of adjustment) have been replaced by trammels? Certainly my tool of choice for transfering large dimensions.
Good luck
You could use them for laying out the dovetails on the corner of your Anarchist’s Tool House.
A similar kind of thing, but with a fixed spacing between the points, has been used in surveying (I can’t remember what it’s called in that context). The distance between the points was traditionally either one rod (16.5 feet) or a half rod (8.25 ft). The one-rod version works find in open areas but gets unwieldy in the forest.
I see three resources by Bob Lang for Sketchup. Do you know which one(s) are better? Two are shop classes and the other is his book.
This is the one I especially like.
http://craftsmanplans.com/sketchup.htm
I wrote a review of it on this blog… somewhere.
I can’t wait to see the size of the sector you are going to build to use with the compasses.
Stephen