Measure with Sticks

If you have seen anything I've ever done before, you know that I'm really averse to Using a tape measure or a ruler. I avoid it whenever possible. What I'm about to do here is a great example of a scenario where you almost just can’t use a Tape measure or a ruler. Here's what's going on. This cabinet, when mature, will have a tambour door inside it and a vertical Divider.

There's a groove here at the bottom. There's a mirror-image set of grooves up there on the top. In order to make the timber door and divider, I need to know exactly how far From groove to groove. Now this one, yes, I could probably place the end of a ruler there. I could measure to there.

I could end with a fractional dimension. This one, let’s assume that data isn’t there. On this one, it's harder because the whole thing is internal. Here's the way I did this. Instead of trying to measure at all, I am measuring.

With these fancy devices, these are cherries offcuts from some project. They just have to be small and flexible enough that I can do this and also do this. The way this will work then is that stick bottoms out in that groove. This stick, the na na na na na na na, goes up into that groove. Hold them tight; clamp them to hold that measurement.

And I'm just confirming that they're tight. They are. Now that it’s thin, what’s nice is I can just walk it out or flex it out, then This can go to, in my case, I took this to the miter saw. Put this end against the blade. Put this end against the stop.

So I never did any fractional measuring for this at all. I just used this set of sticks to tell me exactly how long my timber door should be Inside of groove to inside of groove. So that's a much simpler way to extract those measurements than trying to mess around with a Ruler.