GGs,

I realize that this is the post that will fill my quota for the day, but alas I
am in need of guidance. Where on the net can I find out what I can do with
dividers? As a power tool guy, I never used them.

Ron a Kokomo Galoot

Sent from Xfinity Mobile App
------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I realize that this is the post that will fill my quota for the day,
> but alas I am in need of guidance. Where on the net can I find out
> what I can do with dividers? As a power tool guy, I never used them.
>> Ron a Kokomo Galoot

The video you'll find here might be a good place to start:

http://sandal-woodsblog.com/2010/10/21/woodworking-in-america-video-
using-dividers-to-lay-out-anything/

http://tinyurl.com/7d4kyjm

Otherwise, a search using "dividers woodworking" turns up quite a few
links that look promising.

Chuck Myers

------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 5/21/2012 10:18 PM, harperron@c... wrote:
> Where on the net can I find out what I can do with dividers?
Right here I should think.

I use 'em all the time in  my shop where I have  things like an Austrian 
slider and  an Aggazani B-20 to name a  couple

You use 'em to space out DTs, to find the center of things, to lay out 
radii, to mark off evenly spaced geometries,  there's no end of the uses 
you can put 'em to once you start
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ron asks:
  Where on the net can I find out what I can do with dividers? As a 
power tool guy, I never used them.

If the focus is on layout, you can't go wrong getting tips & tricks from 
the Old Millwright.  Hopefully, he'll be piping up soon.  I reckon he's 
forgotten more about the subject than a lot of us will ever know - 
certainly more than I will ever know.  And that's one of his minor areas 
of expertise.
Charlie Rodgers, always eager to read whatever Jim has to say
Clinton, Maryland

------------------------------------------------------------------------

On May 21, 2012, at 7:51 PM, Charlie Rodgers wrote:

> Ron asks:
> Where on the net can I find out what I can do with dividers? As a power tool
guy, I never used them.
> 
> If the focus is on layout, you can't go wrong getting tips & tricks from the
Old Millwright.  Hopefully, he'll be piping up soon.  I reckon he's forgotten
more about the subject than a lot of us will ever know - certainly more than I
will ever know.  And that's one of his minor areas of expertise.
> Charlie Rodgers, always eager to read whatever Jim has to say
> Clinton, Maryland

Er, ah.... Harumph!!

Dividers, or a pencil compass, or a set of trammels, whatever you have to swing
an arc. Indispensable for layout. A framing square makes life a little easier,
but you can live without one provided you can do trig calculations. If you can
find Rise, Run, and Diagonal you are almost home. You can even do pattern
development and lofting. Mind you, before the advent of the calculator we had to
use trig tables and a slide rule. Wow! That brings back not-so-fond memories. We
had a book which was universally referred to as Smoley's Tables. I still have
mine. Very few working men had the ability to use all this stuff. Smoley's
Tables was used as a litmus test when taking on a layout man. Someone would ask
you to solve a problem, and hand you the book. If you could solve the problem,
you knew what you were doing and you would be accepted. I saw early on that
layout men were respected because of their knowledge, and I wanted in on that.

Old story now repeated because it has been a long time since I told it. Early in
my apprenticeship, my OJT Journeyman was an almost illiterate foul mouthed,
snuff spitting, foul smelling, beer swilling hillbilly who could do mystical
things with only a divider and a straightedge. He could lay out absolutely
anything with just those two tools. I learned my basic layout from him. I
mention him in the tutorial I have on Wiktor's site:

http://wkfinetools.com/contrib/jThompson/howTo/Layout/layoutPart.asp

A few years later I worked in close proximity to a REAL layout man who did all
kinds of pattern development. He worked at a huge granite table 16 feet long by
6 feet wide by a foot thick. He had rolls of heavy paper four feet wide at the
end of the table which he could pull out to any length, like what you used to
see at a butcher shop. He often laid out stuff on steel plate as wide as 12 feet
by 20 feet. 

 I was operating what was known as a Union Melt Welder which deposited a weld
bead on rolling mill rolls as large as 4 feet in diameter. When a roll reached
its minimum diameter it was sent to the shop to be rebuilt with weld back to its
original diameter. Some rolls were as long as 148".  Once I had my machine
running it would operate automatically for a couple of hours, and I had time to
watch him work, and it was fascinating. He was a patient old man, and he would
answer my questions, but a lot of what he said was over my head. I had to get an
AA degree in math before I actually understood what he was doing. I went to
school at night for about 3 years to learn the math. Remember, no calculators
yet. Once calculators got really sophisticated, layout became a lot easier. My
most recent calculator is a gem. You don't have to know trig to do trig. I am
not completely convinced that this is a good thing. Old habits die hard.

When I was teaching Boilermaker Apprentices, one of the first things I had them
do was to make a pair of dividers. You can buy a fine pair of dividers, but a
pair that you made with your own hands will always be a treasure. I still have
the pair I made early in my own apprenticeship. A few of the apprentices really
got into making their dividers, and the end result was a really good looking
tool. Some were half-fast, but they worked. But every one of those guys still
has his pair of hand made dividers, and cherishes them.

My favorite dividers are a Starrett and a Tumico, both of which have loose legs
which can be replaced with longer ones, or with curved legs so they can be used
as calipers. I have to confess to never passing up a decent pair of dividers in
the wild. I sort of collect them. :>)

James Thompson, the Old Millrat in Riverside CA

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Short version:

Jim is a hard act to follow, but going to the most absolutely basic
level of what dividers are good for and what kinds there are:

Long version:

Any time you want to transfer a measurement from one place to another
you use dividers. Especially if you want to transfer a measurement from
one place to several; even direct transfer is less accurate if you are
making more than one new mark. Set the dividers and scratch or poke a
mark. All the time, every day. I don't think I use any tool more often.

To divide a line into any desired number of equal spaces, in a human-
sized working environment, the easy and highly accurate way is to "step
off" the divisions: set the dividers to your guess of the desired one-
division distance, set one point at the start of the line, and step
them along the desired number of divisions. You will be a little short
or long, so correct the setting by your guess of the proper correction
and step off the distance again. Each repetition comes closer the
correct, and it takes very little practice before you have it as
perfect as humanly possible in two or three settings. There are more
purely geometrical ways to divide a line, but none faster, easier, or
more precise.

Of course you can scribe arcs and circles with dividers, but one
important property is that when you use a setting to scratch a circle,
then you can step around the circle with the same setting and you will
get six equal divisions. Elaboration of this fact is the basis for
roundels in chip carving, hex signs, and a lot of other basic
decoration.

In fact, dividers used with a straightedge are why rulers are completely
unnecessary as well as being extremely inaccurate.

Some other tools do specific work better; but, for instance, if you have
no marking gauge you can do its work with dividers, whereas you can't do
all the work of dividers with a marking gauge.

Often you need several dimensions, and you want to save each one for a
while; so you need several (in fact many) sets of dividers, and it is
good if you can tell them apart. This is OK because top-quality dividers
are common and inexpensive in flea markets, and the best ones cost no
more than poor ones (in my area I feel stupid if I pay $10, though $5
isn't common any more).

The usual dividers for woodworking nowadays are machinists' spring
dividers, which have spread to most of the trades that use dividers
(that is, to most trades that make things). My favorites for both
woodworking and bookbinding are Starrett 6" "Fay" spring dividers with a
"speed nut" similar to the speed nut on a good bench vise:

http://www.starrett.com/metrology/product-detail?k=77B-6

Starret makes three grades of spring dividers: the "Fay" with solid rectangular-
section legs and the screw passing through the leg, the inferior
"Yankee" with thin rectangular legs and the screw passing through a
stud sticking out from the leg, and the "toolmakers'" with round-
section legs and a finer screw. The "Yankee"-style are what you
commonly see, by other good and bad makers as well as=A0 by Starrett,
but they are weaker and less elegant; the "toolmakers'" are slow
because of the fine screw and their extra precision isn't needed for my
work. "Fay" are best. If you consider buying them new (I did, one time)
bear it in bind that they come with crude conical points--- you are
expected to shape the points to your own needs and tastes. I have
points with a range of sharpness for different uses, a few of which I
reshaped or corrected but many with the points as I got them. And I
have a good many 4" pairs (I used to prefer them) and pairs with solid
(slow) nuts and "Yankee"-type pairs. Almost all cost $10 or less,
except my first pair of mediocre common-hardware-store Generals (now
about $15) and the one pair of new Starrets (now $100). Really poor
spring dividers are rare, though they do exist (I mean original
manufacture, not condition; poor condition is common enough).

Wing dividers are also a good choice for woodworking, since (like spring
dividers) they will hold a setting reliably:

http://www.csosborne.com/no106.htm

The fine-adjustment screw outside the leg is a refinement, so don't
worry if a pair was made without it; but make sure the main screw is present--
it is a pain to try to replace it, and while wing dividers are less
common than spring dividers, they are common enough. I don't use mine
very often, as they feel a bit heavy in my hand, but that is more what I
am accustomed to for bookbinding; the extra sturdiness of wing dividers
is an asset for woodworking. Again, be prepared to reshape the points to
your taste and to bring them even, using files and grinding.

"Lancashire pattern" spring dividers (with both legs and the bow
forged elegantly as one piece) are often regarded as rare-and-
historic antiques:

http://www.davistownmuseum.org/bioStubs.htm

but I think they must have been made much later into the 20th century
than dealers and collectors want to believe; I have found them in the
wild, and the pair I keep on my benchtop was no more expensive than any
of my other pairs. Their drawback is that they are slow, since they
never have speed nuts and tend to be stiff.

There is a wide variety of elegant spring dividers made for mechanical
drawing, but I find them a bit too delicate for even bookbinding, much
less woodworking, and in general they have no advantage I can see over
machinists' dividers. They usually were made with alternate points for
ink, pencil, and double metal points, and usually you find them with
just one of the alternatives in place.

Friction-joint dividers were historically older, and they are still
made, especially for "hermaphrodite" calliper-and-divider combinations:

http://www.starrett.com/metrology/product-detail?k=243-6

I've never trusted them to hold their settings, so I don't have any
(except in sets of drafting tools, which don't count).

I'm running down, your patience is probably exhausted, and I don't
think I answered the actual question. But, for what its worth, there it
is. No tool is more necessary-- once you wean yourself from rulers.=A0
=A0 =A0 =A0

Tom Conroy


Ron Harper wrote:

"I realize that this is the post that will fill my quota for the day,
but alas I am in need of guidance. Where on the net can I find out what
I can do with dividers? As a power tool guy, I never used them."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can build a cathedral with a rope with 13 knots in it, so I am sure
there is a ton of things you can do with a divider. On May 21, 2012, at
10:18 PM, <harperron@c...> wrote:

> GGs,
>> I realize that this is the post that will fill my quota for the day,
>> but alas I am in need of guidance. Where on the net can I find out
>> what I can do with dividers? As a power tool guy, I never used them.
>> Ron a Kokomo Galoot

Ed Minch

------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are more purely geometrical ways to divide a line, 
but none faster, easier, or more precise.

------------------------

Tom, lets have a race: There's 3 boards each 4+5/16" wide x 1' long. 
Each 1' length has to be divided equally into battens. 
One piece into 4 battens, one into 6 and the last into 8 battens.

Ready, set go. 

My method is to get a rule and angle it across the board from the 
0" mark to the 6" mark (4 equal divisions of 1+1/2" ) and make 3 marks. 
Next I move to the second 1' piece and again lay the rule across the board
at an angle from the 0" mark to the 6" mark, and mark off 5 marks at the 
inch divisions. etc., etc.

Done.

Some-one a long time ago discovered this and I'm happy they did for I rarely 
use a different method for this type of dividing work.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/71876725/IMG_6085.JPG

Of course it (almost) goes without saying that (not just) in layout, there are 
times when there is more than one way to skin a cat, and there are those times 
when only one way will get you through the maze.

But what do I know? I have a nice set of Mitutoyo verniers, and my method for 
using them is to place work inside the jaws, or the jaws inside work and lock 
them up, then get my trusty steel rule and measure against it. Accuracy? 
Within any one division of the rule. 

Cheers
PeterH in Perth
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outstanding!  There are 2 ways to describe something, one is with literature,
the other with scientific facts. I told a story using literature, Tom gives us
the missing facts. I like it!

Dividers are an extremely useful tool, and we should all be well schooled in
their uses.

I use the stepping off method Tom describes when I must, but I prefer to find
equal parts using this method:

http://wkfinetools.com/contrib/jThompson/howTo/Layout/layoutPart6.asp

One other thing I would like to mention is this: I have found that putting two
pieces of 1/8" diameter carbide rounds into holes drilled into the ends of my
divider legs, and then silver soldering them permanently in place, is an
excellent idea. Once you sharpen the carbides they will stay sharp indefinitely.
I have one set made so that one leg is like a curved knife blade on the end so
it will cut in either direction. It is wonderful for cutting gaskets, leather,
and other things. The carbide tips sharpened to a point will scratch lines on
metals almost forever without resharpening.

I learned early that for torch cutting a line on steel, there is no equal to a
scratched line. It stays in place while you are doing the cutting, and
everything else will disappear. (soapstone, Silver Streak, etc.) I have always
used carbide tipped dividers and scribes on metals.

Another hillbilly taught me to do torch burning. I will never forget his telling
me after examining a piece I had cut, "Now, that ain't even half bad. But when
you learn to cut steel good enough that you can turn the pieces over and dust
off the dross with your hankie, then you'll be a burner." 

Ya know what? He was right. There is skill involved in everything that is well
done. And the techniques can be learned. The biggest lesson was to scratch my
lines so I could see them.

On May 22, 2012, at 2:01 AM, Thomas Conroy wrote:

> Short version:
> 
> Jim is a hard act to follow, but going to the most absolutely basic level of
what dividers are good for and what kinds there are:
> 
> Long version:
> 
> Any time you want to transfer a measurement from one place to another you use
dividers. Especially if you want to transfer a measurement from one place to
several; even direct transfer is less accurate if you are making more than one
new mark. Set the dividers and scratch or poke a mark. All the time, every day.
I don't think I use any tool more often.
> 
> To divide a line into any desired number of equal spaces, in a human-sized
working environment, the easy and highly accurate way is to "step off" the
divisions: set the dividers to your guess of the desired one-division distance,
set one point at the start of the line, and step them along the desired number
of divisions. You will be a little short or long, so correct the setting by your
guess of the proper correction and step off the distance again. Each repetition
comes closer the correct, and it takes very little practice before you have it
as perfect as humanly possible in two or three settings. There are more purely
geometrical ways to divide a line, but none faster, easier, or more precise.
> 
> Of course you can scribe arcs and circles with dividers, but one important
property is that when you use a setting to scratch a circle, then you can step
around the circle with the same setting and you will get six equal divisions.
Elaboration of this fact is the basis for roundels in chip carving, hex signs,
and a lot of other basic decoration.
> 
> In fact, dividers used with a straightedge are why rulers are completely
unnecessary as well as being extremely inaccurate.
> 
> Some other tools do specific work better; but, for instance, if you have no
marking gauge you can do its work with dividers, whereas you can't do all the
work of dividers with a marking gauge.
> 
> Often you need several dimensions, and you want to save each one for a while;
so you need several (in fact many) sets of dividers, and it is good if you can
tell them apart. This is OK because top-quality dividers are common and
inexpensive in flea markets, and the best ones cost no more than poor ones (in
my area I feel stupid if I pay $10, though $5 isn't common any more).
> 
> The usual dividers for woodworking nowadays are machinists' spring dividers,
which have spread to most of the trades that use dividers (that is, to most
trades that make things). My favorites for both woodworking and bookbinding are
Starrett 6" "Fay" spring dividers with a "speed nut" similar to the speed nut on
a good bench vise:
> 
> http://www.starrett.com/metrology/product-detail?k=77B-6
> 
> Starret makes three grades of spring dividers: the "Fay" with solid
rectangular-section legs and the screw passing through the leg, the inferior
"Yankee" with thin rectangular legs and the screw passing through a stud
sticking out from the leg, and the "toolmakers'" with round-section legs and a
finer screw. The "Yankee"-style are what you commonly see, by other good and bad
makers as well as  by Starrett, but they are weaker and less elegant; the
"toolmakers'" are slow because of the fine screw and their extra precision isn't
needed for my work. "Fay" are best. If you consider buying them new (I did, one
time) bear it in bind that they come with crude conical points--- you are
expected to shape the points to your own needs and tastes. I have points with a
range of sharpness for different uses, a few of which I reshaped or corrected
but many with the points as I got them. And I have a good many 4" pairs (I used
to prefer them) and pairs with solid (slow)
> nuts and "Yankee"-type pairs. Almost all cost $10 or less, except my first
pair of mediocre common-hardware-store Generals (now about $15) and the one pair
of new Starrets (now $100). Really poor spring dividers are rare, though they do
exist (I mean original manufacture, not condition; poor condition is common
enough).
> 
> Wing dividers are also a good choice for woodworking, since (like spring
dividers) they will hold a setting reliably:
> 
> http://www.csosborne.com/no106.htm
> 
> The fine-adjustment screw outside the leg is a refinement, so don't worry if a
pair was made without it; but make sure the main screw is present-- it is a pain
to try to replace it, and while wing dividers are less common than spring
dividers, they are common enough. I don't use mine very often, as they feel a
bit heavy in my hand, but that is more what I am accustomed to for bookbinding;
the extra sturdiness of wing dividers is an asset for woodworking. Again, be
prepared to reshape the points to your taste and to bring them even, using files
and grinding.
> 
> "Lancashire pattern" spring dividers (with both legs and the bow forged
elegantly as one piece) are often regarded as rare-and-historic antiques:
> 
> http://www.davistownmuseum.org/bioStubs.htm
> 
> but I think they must have been made much later into the 20th century than
dealers and collectors want to believe; I have found them in the wild, and the
pair I keep on my benchtop was no more expensive than any of my other pairs.
Their drawback is that they are slow, since they never have speed nuts and tend
to be stiff.
> 
> There is a wide variety of elegant spring dividers made for mechanical
drawing, but I find them a bit too delicate for even bookbinding, much less
woodworking, and in general they have no advantage I can see over machinists'
dividers. They usually were made with alternate points for ink, pencil, and
double metal points, and usually you find them with just one of the alternatives
in place.
> 
> Friction-joint dividers were historically older, and they are still made,
especially for "hermaphrodite" calliper-and-divider combinations:
> 
> http://www.starrett.com/metrology/product-detail?k=243-6
> 
> I've never trusted them to hold their settings, so I don't have any (except in
sets of drafting tools, which don't count).
> 
> I'm running down, your patience is probably exhausted, and I don't think I
answered the actual question. But, for what its worth, there it is. No tool is
more necessary-- once you wean yourself from rulers.        
> 
> Tom Conroy
> 
> 
> Ron Harper wrote:
> 
> "I realize that this is the post that will fill my quota for the day, but alas
I am in need of guidance. Where on the net can I find out what I can do with
dividers? As a power tool guy, I never used them."
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> OldTools is a mailing list catering to the interests of hand tool
> aficionados, both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage,
> value, location, availability, collectibility, and restoration of
> traditional handtools, especially woodworking tools.
> 
> To change your subscription options:
> http://ruckus.law.cornell.edu/mailman/listinfo/oldtools
> 
> To read the FAQ:
> http://swingleydev.com/archive/faq.html
> 
> OldTools archive: http://swingleydev.com/archive/
> 
> OldTools@r...
> http://ruckus.law.cornell.edu/mailman/listinfo/oldtools

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll confess to a grammatical error: I should have said "faster, easier, and
more precise," not "or." Methods that are faster than using dividers are less
precise or harder, methods that are more precise are slower, and so on.

I don't think I'd win the race: I'm slow at the best of times, not precise
enough by nature to be a machinist, and I'm willing to allow the ruler trick to
be faster anyway. But I don't bother with the ruler trick, because with the
materials I use for the things I do at the scale I work to it is as precise to
mark by eye without bothering with the ruler. If I needed more precision than my
eye can give I would have to correct using dividers anyway, so why bother with
the ruler?

The eye as precise as a ruler? Well, I just checked on a 3-3/4" board with
rough-sawed edges, and was disappointed in my level of precision, but even so
the division into eight, done with only a sharpish pencil and checked with
dividers and a Starrett 6" rule calibrated to 64ths, was precise to 1/32", less
than the width of the kerf of the saw I would use to cut the battens apart and
on most days much less than the wobble of the kerf for me. Almost all the
variation was in the pieces at the edges of the board; if I throw these out (as
I learned to do in science classes many years ago), five of the six remaining
were dead on in 128ths and the sixth was under 1/32" off. That's not good enough
for machining metal, not good enough to get a motor to work or to do celestial
navigation, but its ample for what I do. The division into sixths was not as
good, 5/8" to 1/16" and if I throw out the top and bottom two were dead on and
two less than 1/32" under. Still
 better than I can saw.

Yeah, I'll confess that in practice I use a ruler a lot. But that's laziness,
not speed or precision.
____________________________________

OK, this is about to run off on a tangent here, but maybe its unfamiliarity will
interest someone. And some of this stuff was learned so long ago that I just
don't think about it.

Remember, most of what I do involves paper, so I always have scrap and offcuts
around. If I want a division into multiples of two I'll take a slip of waste,
mark the desired overall length from one end, fold the end to the mark, and
crease down.That gives a true half if you do it correctly and carefully. If you
want a rough quarter fold the halved slip in half; if you want a precise one
fold each half independently. If you want a third: fold the two halves in
without creasing and fiddle back and forth until they are as precise as you need
them, then crease. Sixths: fold into thirds, then halve the thirds. And so on.
Fifths are tricky without stepping off, but who needs fifths for anything unless
they are joined at the hip to decimal arithmetic and the metric system?

In binding there is a lot of use of the fact that it is very hard to construct a
true right angle in any situation, but very easy to get a right angle good
enough to fool the eye. Example? In marking the squared-off end of a two-by-four
for cutting you never march the lines around the board ABDC, because the lines
are unlikely to line up; you mark two adjacent sides from their shared arris,
then the other two from the diagonally opposite shared arris. A similar test: on
a piece of paper with a flat square like a drafting triangle mark a line, then a
right angle to that, then one to that, then one to that, and come back to the
original line. They are unlikely to line up. So what do you do if you want a
precise right angle for a pattern? Cut one side of a piece of paper straight
with a knife and straightedge (one of the most basic things you can do in
binding), mark where you want the right angle, and fold the piece of paper in
half, lining up the two
 halves of the straight side you just cut (one of the few things even more
basic).

I would never rely on the sides of a piece of paper being square to the ends to
a high level of precision; but it is more important to be able to get the
parallel edges truly parallel. The eye is very sensitive to out-of-parallel,
especially if the lines are close together, just as it is tolerant of
out-of-square. To get two sides precisely parallel one way is to fold the paper
top to bottom without creasing,line up the two corners on the left, and check
the other two corners; if they don't line up the top and bottom edges are of
different lengths which means that the side edges aren't really parallel, so I
nick the corner that sticks out on the right, allow the paper to unfold, and cut
the right edge true with knife and straightedge. I'd never check to see if two
edges were parallel by seeing if they are both at right angles to a shared
adjacent edge, because this will only work if **two** right angles are **both**
precise; rather, I'd always check to
 see that they are the same distance apart at the ends, using dividers or direct
measurement (as described above) or the equivalent of a story stick (in binding,
an offcut slip with pencil tics on it.)

Running out of steam here, I'm afraid, and no particular point reached. But a
lot of the techniques I learned for binding have close parallels in things that
can be done in woodworking, and a lot of the preferred choices are the result of
habits that come from binding. I avoid numbers as useless, just as someone who
must work in tolerances of thousandsths of an inch get a piece of machinery
running at all will rely on numbers as essential. As Peter said, there are times
when there is more than one way to skin a cat, and other times when there is
only one route through the maze.

Tom Conroy
Moving away from the temptation to a head-butting contest by (to adapt E.R.
Eddison's memorable simile) voiding much ink, like a squid.

PeterH in Perth wrote:
 
> Tom, lets have a race: There's 3 boards each 4+5/16" wide x
> 1' long. 
> Each 1' length has to be divided equally into battens. 
> One piece into 4 battens, one into 6 and the last into 8
> battens.
> 
> Ready, set go. 
> 
> My method is to get a rule and angle it across the board
> from the 
> 0" mark to the 6" mark (4 equal divisions of 1+1/2" ) and
> make 3 marks. 
> Next I move to the second 1' piece and again lay the rule
> across the board
> at an angle from the 0" mark to the 6" mark, and mark off 5
> marks at the 
> inch divisions. etc., etc. ...
> 
> Of course it (almost) goes without saying that (not just) in
> layout, there are 
> times when there is more than one way to skin a cat, and
> there are those times 
> when only one way will get you through the maze.
> 
> But what do I know? I have a nice set of Mitutoyo verniers,
> and my method for 
> using them is to place work inside the jaws, or the jaws
> inside work and lock 
> them up, then get my trusty steel rule and measure against
> it. Accuracy? 
> Within any one division of the rule. 
> 
> Cheers
> PeterH in Perth
> 

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