Have you stopped measuring yet?

[charlese]

About a year ago after reading a couple of articles and stories on measuring, I almost quit measuring entirely. It really worked to put my measuring tape in the drawer and not use it (much) for a year. Parts fit better and are easier to size.

Old time craftsmen didn't have our wonderful measuring tapes yet they still made fine fitting furniture. How? They didn't measure! They used gages (Story sticks, sliding story sticks, jiggers forggers, etc.) A couple of more stories and pictures showed how to make (or clamp) a sliding pointed stick to measure the inside square of a box. Also seeing "The Router Workshop" - - Those guys up in Canada don't use any measuring tapes to set up their routers. They use blocks of pre-measured size (that can be purchased from catalogs). You can put a block next to the bit and feel the setting with your fingers. But - you don't have to buy precision machined blocks - eg: If you have a small board that is a known 3/8" thick and you want your router bit to be 3/8" high - just slide the board next to the bit and adjust it so they are level by touch. For me, this works better than one of those router height gages.

What I have found is; I used to make more measuring errors than tolerable - some by one inch. The pieces cut with these errors had to be stored and made into something else. What really angered me was the fact that I lost some grain matching and color matching.

Since adopting sticks and blocks of wood of known size - I haven't had any measuring errors and parts even fit better.

Have any of you also thrown away (figuratively) your measuring tapes?

[Bruce]

I saw an episode of "Trade School" on DIY where a student was building his own workbench. The instructor encouraged or even demanded that he did not measure most of the time. I can see how the marking guages, story sticks, etc. can give you better accuracy. I'll have to try it more.