"Story poles" were/are also used for laying out clapboard and shingle exposure,
or spacing on house exteriors.  The story pole facilitates alignment of window
sills, heads, and siding exposures while avoiding those ugly small pieces of
siding at the top or bottom off the wall. Glenn Knowles


GLENN KNOWLES & ASSOCIATES
Office: 584 Columbia Rd.Mail: 551 Columbia Rd. #255732
Boston, MA 02125
617-319-5671www.glennknowles.com


      From: "yorkshireman@y..." 
 To: Don Schwartz  
Cc: old tools 
 Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 4:20 AM
 Subject: Re: [OldTools] story sticks
   
Don asks us to tell him a story.. 

> ... the only reference to story sticks was in Jere Cary's book on kitchen
cabinets, where he gives a detailed explanation of their use. His description,
and the sticks themselves, have been immensely useful to me both in refitting a
kitchen, and in building furniture. Basically, they serve as a tool of relative
measure,

I use story sticks frequently, starting yers back when I made a short run of
meditation stools for my GIT,  Marking out lots of pieces, some angled, would
have been a pain with a rule and drawings.  Still have it, though I see marks I
no longer understand, whihc is a shame, as I have been asked to make some more.

That one was just a length of offcut, thinned down at one edge with the edge
marked and annotated.  More intelligible codes would be good.  Later ones I make
using lengths of ply, again planed on the edges and thinned with a bevel if
appropriate, then given a coat of white paint.  This is hugely better.  Mostly
because it avoids the embarrassment of them going for scrap at the end of a
project, but also because the marks show up, as do any notes.  You can recycle
with a fresh coat of paint too.  Us Yorkshiremen are carefu’ wi’ t’ brass.

I seem to recall something in one of my books which showed the dimensions for a
door or similar laid out on the drawing in story stick style - alongside the
projection, with all dimensions for all components, and sections for the
mouldings.  The designer recognising the method of production.  I’ll go and take
a look and see if I can report in a reference.

Richard Wilson
Yorkshireman Galoot 
 in unnaturally warm Northumbria at 29 centimetric degrees


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