The Tool Shed - 2
divider lets you accurately transfer measurements or scribe
circles without the legs of the tool moving.
I’ve already mentioned that one task easily handled by a set
of dividers is transferring measurements. Assume that you
have a scale plan for a simple handcar shed that you want to
build. The first step is to lay out the sides of the building on
styrene or basswood.
You could simply measure the width of each side of the
building on the scale plan using a scale ruler and then, using
a pencil, mark the widths on your siding material and cut
on the pencil lines. However, chances are good that the two
resulting pairs of sides will not be exactly the same width
2: This and the next photo illustrate the technique of “walking”
a divider over a sheet of styrene to result in one or more strips
of the same width. You start by making prick marks with both
divider needles.
2
3: The divider is then “walked” to the right, pivoting around the
right leg and another prick mark made in the styrene for the
second piece; the “ghost” image is the original location. This
is an easy way to produce multiple pieces of styrene which are
the same width. Note that the prick marks need to be in a rela-
tively straight line in order to be the same width.
3
due to the challenge of placing the pencil marks exactly
where they are supposed to be, especially if the width of
the sides of the building are not on an even foot mark. In
addition, the pencil marks themselves are relatively wide.
Is that a problem on a simple shed? No, but such errors do
become more important on larger, more complex projects.
If the sides of a building are not parallel, then it will be dif-
ficult to fit the roof onto the building. Therefore, I make it a
practice to always be as accurate as possible, regardless of
the size or complexity of a scratchbuilding project. Whether
the resulting structure is exactly the size of the prototype to
the nearest scale inch is not as important as having opposite
sides are the same width and height.
MRH-Oct 2013
