I must be making this more dificult than it really is. How do you divide a distance so it will have equally spacing. For instance putting ballusters between 2 post on a deck railing or putting 3 or 4 face frame dividers between drawers. Thanks for any help
For the small distances, dividers set to approximate measurement w/ refinement will nail the distance in only a couple of tries.
For longer measurements like several feet run on railings, I typically will do the same methodology but fix a midpoint or two and do the actual division between them. There's no hope of anybody picking out being off by a hair on the distance between the middle baluster and each end in a
10-ft run that way, for example.--
Do you want equal spacing between centers, or equal "whitespace" between outside edges?
If the first, then measure center-to-center, divide by the number of gaps, and mark the centers.
If the second, measure inside-edge-to-inside-edge, subtract the combined width of all the ballusters/dividers, then divide by how many gaps there will be. When marking, you would then mark the gap, then the width of the balluster/divider, then the gap...
If your ballusters/dividers are all the same size, you can simplify the layout by taking the calculated gap and adding half the width of the balluster/divider. Marking multiples of this size will give you the centers of the ballusters/dividers.
Chris
That method won't give you the right spacing at each end will it?
Of course -- it gives you the same measurement at however many number of spacings you choose. If you choose the intermediate-fixed-point method the only requirement is to make the number of intermediates chosen an even divisor of the total number of increments wanted so those points are at the proper position. Then if they're off by
This method gives equal center-to-center distances. If your ballusters/dividers are not equal width, this method will give unequal spaces between the edges.
Chris
You have to remember the width of the balusters if you want equal distances between each baluster.
If your face frame has a 48" opening and you want to put 3 equal width drawers in that space, and the face frame dividers are 2" wide, take 48" subtract 2x2" for the face frame dividers and divide the result by 3.
48"- 4" = 44" , 44" / 3 = 14.67" Spacing between each divider.
I don't know what it's called, but I saw a dude using an expanding X frame (accordion style) to mark out equal spacings.
The device looks like this thing:
I have one of these in my shop:
That's it! Thanks, Mo (can I call you, Mo?) :-)
Except, his was bigger and longer. [insert "that's what she said," here]
BTW, what are these called? The expanding "X" geometric concept?
I saw a name somewhere and can't think of it.
RE: Subject
There is a straight forward graphical solution.
1) Draw a line at an angle, say 30 degrees to the intended line, that has been divided into the number of spaces req'd. (A)2) Draw a line from the end of the line to be divided (B) to the end of the line that has been drawn at an angle (C).
3) Draw lines parallel to B-C that intersect the division points along A-C. These lines will equally divide A-BLew
BUT what you are talking about will only provide equal spacing between "points". If you mount your balusters at those points you will have narrower spaces on the out sides of the first and last baluster.
The divider does not take into consideration the width of the objects/balusters.
It would be very easy to adjust the starting and stopping points.
You would hold each end further apart, at a spot equal to half a baluster.
But you left that out, he wanted to center objects in a given width.
Leon wrote: ...
But if you measure from the inside of the corner posts, equal centerlines does the same thing w/o the extra measurements. You do, of course, have to count the proper number of spaces or objects, yes.
--
I didn't realize he wanted someone to come over and do it for him. :-)
I though something like that pantograph (that's the word I was looking for) devise would take the math out of the process.
Don't you agree that anyone with a moderate amount of experience could use it to do similar tasks to what the OP was asking?
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