Living in an old house with few conveniently square walls I often have trouble cutting wood/plasterboard to the right shape/size to fit here and there. It can take an hour of filing and planing to get the cut just right. The most frustrating experiences I have are with plasterboarding ceilings.
Just how do people cope with odd shapes and sizes and angles, and cut pieces exactly right first time?
Kind regards,
Saeed
sr_ng 786
Making a small angle finder is a good idea for this type of job. You can make a simple one from two pieces of timber that you screw together as close to one end as you can without splitting the wood. When you place it in a corner and open it out until the arms touch either wall and the hinge part fits tightly into the corner, you can then transfer the pattern on to anything you need to cut to that angle.
One piece of wood has a hole drilled through so that the shank of a screwnail slips easily through it. The other piece of wood is drilled so that the screwnail fixes to it tightly and holds the other piece of wood tight against the other. The firmer they fit together the better, so that you don't lose the shape when you're moving about after taking the angle measurements. A floppy one is a useless piece of work. :-))
One of these can help when transferring angles from place to place:
I know I am...
Make it in brown paper first. Gadgets like angle finders assume that the wall is straight and at the same angle all the way along, neither of which is particularly likely. Brown paper can be folded for long runs and cut to fit around odd shapes. If you cut too much away, you can glue another bit on and try again, or you can cut the fiddly bit first, then glue it to the big sheet when it is right. When it all fits perfectly, transfer the final shape to whatever you want to cut.
Colin Bignell
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