The Crafty Puzzles Company: Folding rule ChristMads tips

Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Folding rule ChristMads tips

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Folding rule ChristMads tips

Folding the rules, not bending…

Hi guys and girls, I have been quite a lot off line lately…

The X put my daughter and me on the street with one weeks’ notice (no I did not cheat on her, smiles).

But that meant chaos in my life, and my beloved daughter Mathildes also.

Now we are landed, living more or less in the workshop, but have got a wonderful apartment from February so we are both full of bright light for the future and the new apartment is so cool that I almost can’t wait to get there.

So yes, even chaos has been the name of the game, smile has slowly returned to my face an so I want to send you all some of this good feeling I have inside.

So I will share with you a page from my little book, or more precise two pages and a blog showing what I mean, needed? Yes, since the text is written in Danish.

So here are the pages from my sketchbook.

Those of you who know all the trick can go and make coffee now and come back to my next blog…

The folding rule or even tape measure hold secrets helped by mathematics and some clever peoples thoughts.

Need is the mother of invention they say.

There are many types of folding rules wood, metal and plastic are some of the materials they can be made of, they are usually promised a tolerance of app. 1mm for each two meters or 1/8 in six feet US.

ANGLES / DEGREES:

Trick one is a way to set precise circle degrees when you have only a ruler.

Mark up the number 57,3 cm or 57 5/16 inch on the ruler.

(You might want to use half inches if you don’t want too big a radius, then the number will be 28 5/8 inch, then each 1/2 inch will equal 1 degree on the circle).

Drill a hole in the center.

Now you are able to put a nail through the hole and hammer it onto a board that are longer than the 57,3 cm.

Now hold a pencil tight to the end of the rule and draw the circle section needed on the board.

Then make a line from the nail and to the circle.

If you are alone hammer in another nail here.

(The thickness of the ruler behind the circle).

Then you can hold the ruler against the nail and bend the ruler at the same time.

And even set marks with the pencil.

Here I mark 10 cm and this equals 10 degrees.

Now I draw a line from the center to the 10 degree mark.

Get the point?

I think this is brilliant.

Learned it more than 20 years ago from some old concrete workers when we had to make a staircase concrete form.

And yes! You can make holes in the tape measure too and this will work the same.

DIVIDE EASY:

Easy way to divide into equal parts without having to calculate.

This board measures app. 33,7 cm, a bad number when I want to divide in three parts…

So instead I take the nearest integer numbers that are easy to divide in three.

Here 60 cm and mark up for each 20 cm.

Like this.

Then I hold the rule up to the point and hold firmly on the rule with my left as I draw with the right and move the ruler towards me.

Like so!

And the same for the next line.

That’s it!

Divided in three.

PERPENDICULAR or a perfect 90 degree

This one we usually thanks Pythagoras (app. 550 BC) for, but actually the trick was known as long back as 1800 BC in Babylon and probably even before that and the magic numbers are 3-4-5.

We need three boards (I make a model here).