LUNT CARPENTRY

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Miscellaneous Tips

Always make a complete drawing of everything you plan to build. And be sure to include the width of the material in your calculations. If you're making a simple square box, for instance, with the two side walls inside the two end ones, those side walls will have to be cut two widths shorter than the end ones to keep the box square.

Speaking of widths, you probably already know that a 2 X 4 isn't really 2" by 4", just as a 1 X 6 isn't really 1" by 6". Boards get planed a bit from this nominal size in their final milling. So a 2 X 4 is actually 1½ by 3½", and a 1 X 6 is ¾" by 5½”.

Put the information in the last two paragraphs together and you can figure out why the most common 2X4 board, the stud , used to frame all those 8'-tall walls, is actually 3" shy of being 8' long. Have you got it? The stud in a framed wall, like the inside walls of a box, sits on a 2 X 4 and is topped by a 2 X 4. The real width of those two boards (1½ plus 1½") adds up to 3", so the stud has to be 3" short for a wall exactly 8' tall.

Never leave the end of a board dangling between supports in anything you build. Always nail it to something. (Add some backing, called blocking , if need be.) If another board's going to butt up against the first one, you'll want to cut the first board so it ends halfway across that nailing surface (Fig. 15). Then you'll have something left to nail the other board to.

Want to be sure a large corner makes a true right angle? Measure 3' out one side and 4' out the other. If the distance between those points (the hypotenuese of a right triangle) is 5', you're on the mark.

Do you want to know if any rectangular structure you've laid out—from a box to a house site—is square? Measure the diagonals. If they're equal (and, indeed, all four corners are right angles and the opposite sides are equal), you're in business.

Building Fever

Obviously, I can't tell you everything about carpentry in one article—even if I knew it! In fact, I haven't actually told you how to build anything ; I've just tried to help you start using the tools. You'll have to figure out your own projects. Better yet, get a carpenter friend to make some drawings for you of that first bookcase or woodshed. Getting that kind of design help while you sit together over a cup of hot tea can be indispensable.

But once your builder friend's finished those sketches and you're out there alone with tape, hammer and a stack of boards waiting like a disassembled jigsaw puzzle, then some of my advice may well come in handy and help you avoid some of the goofs I made while I was learning these simple lessons.

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