If you’re a maker of any kind, you’re gonna need to quickly and accurately determine half lengths of pieces of material stock. If the length is an odd or mixed number, you don’t want to reach for a calculator or your smartphone every time it’s time to noodle the half-length solution.
In this episode, DirtFarmer Jay shows you his favorite method for dividing stock in half - using only a single tape measure (for long stock) or a ruler/yardstick (for shorter pieces).
It’s easy, fast, accurate, convenient, and uses what you have handy as a maker all the time anyways - a tape measure.
Just to give you a sample, let’s try this. QUICK, in your head, what’s half of 29-5/8”? That’s what we thought. If you think about it long enough, you’ll probably get it, but there’s an easier way.
After doing the entire length measure, go to the approximate halfway point and do this, adding up your answers as you go, right alongside the tape. So, half of 20” is 10”. Put your finger or pencil point there. Next, half of 9” is 4-½”. Now move 4-½” to the right from 10”. You are now at 14-½”. Lastly, ½ of ⅝” is 5/16”, so move 5/16” more to the right of 14-½”. You will land on 14-13/16”, and that’s your answer. Place a mark there. To double-check, measure back from the right-hand end to see that you get the same answer. Spiffy, huh?
Watch the episode to see this in action! Why reach for a calculator when with this simple trick, you can JUST DO IT YOURSELF?
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
Have you ever tried to determine the half length of a piece of stock really quickly?
And especially if it's a weird length like 29 and 5 16th.
Quick, do that in your head.
Well, I'm going to show you how to use your tape measure to do the calculation for you.
Stay tuned.
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here.
Well, if you're a maker like I am,
you've got lots of different material you use in your shop,
whether it's wood or plastic or metal.
And the task is going to come to you where you got to quickly and accurately determine
half lengths of something.
Sure, you can get out your smartphone or run for the calculator or do long math,
but you can use a ruler or tape measure to get there quickly.
Let's walk you through the steps,
and you're going to see how quickly you can do this and master this technique.
So what I have before us right now is just three random lengths of wood stock,
and we're just going to let them be whatever length they are.
And then determine what the half length is.
So let's go ahead and throw a tape on this one.
And what we have is 21 and 5 16th.
Well, quick, quick, do that in your head.
You probably could if you thought about it long,
but you may make an error and it may be a little hard.
So instead, let's use the tape to come up with it.
And this is how I do it.
If I've got 21 and 5 16th,
I start with the largest number first and divide it in half.
In this case, it's 20.
So 20, half of 20 is 10.
I just put my pencil at the 10 inch mark.
I've got it.
21 is the next one.
So half of one is a half.
So now I'm 10 and a half and half of 5 16th.
You just double the denominator.
That's 5 30 seconds.
And there's two 30 seconds in each of these 16.
So there's two 30 seconds, three 30 seconds,
and a halfway right there is 5 30 seconds.
So the answer is 10 and 5 8th plus a 30 second.
All right.
And you can add that together.
Is that true?
I'm going to go ahead and put a mark on the tape measure.
Let's measure it from the other end and see.
Do we get that?
Yep.
There we go.
All right.
Let's try another one.
We'll get rid of that.
Let's switch to a regular stainless steel rule.
And let's just do that and see if it works.
What is the length on this one?
Well, we're at 11 and 5 8th.
You can read that upside down there.
Well, 10 is the first half.
That's 5.
11 is another inch.
That's a half and half of 5 8th.
Double the denominator is 5 16th.
So there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 16th.
Let's put a mark right there.
And the answer, let's just measure from the other end.
And there we are at the same mark.
We are at 5 and 13 16th is the answer.
And it was done on the tape measure, or excuse me,
the ruler and the block of wood, the actual object you're using.
So now you can cut that in half.
Well, let's do one more.
And then I'm going to show you another little subdivision trick.
If I go right here, well, it's the same length, isn't it?
10 and 5 8th.
No, 11 5 8th.
Here we go.
10 and 5 8th.
Well, we know it's going to be 5 plus 5 16th.
It's going to be right there.
Okay, now let's suppose I wanted to cut this nice piece of stock into quarters.
Well, the way I'm going to do that, that's a half.
But now I can also go to this, this 5 and 5 16th and say, well, what's the half of that?
Well, we know half of 5 is 2 and a half.
And we know the half of 5 16th is 5 32nd.
So there's 2, 4, 5 32nd right there.
And there you go.
I've now cut that space in half and I could repeat the process on the other side.
All without using a calculator.
There's math in it, but it's being calculated a different way.
Using the actual physical object you're going to measure and a rule.
If you have a tip like this, you'd like to share with your fellow viewers.
Why don't you say so in the comments before below and we'll get that information out.
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This is Dirt Farmer Jay with DirtFarmerJay.com
with a faster and better way to figure out half measures.
