Proportional Dividers - Golden Section and Generalized #5: Golden Divider Prototype

very cool. still want to make one of those, but the thing is – I do all the design in SU where it’s just too easy to multiply/divide by 1.618…

-- ㊍ When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

PurpLev,
I know… I “pre-build” just about everything I make in Sketchup first… sort of work out the construction process there…

but sometimes I like to improvise with a scrap or other piece of wood in the shop, and having a few design/layout tools out there helps a lot…

for instance, I’m planning to make a couple of boxes out of crown molding, and with the calipers, I can pretty much do it all in the shop without any math beyond addition or subtraction (for the box bottom grooves…)

M

-- -- "there are many good reasons to use old hand tools, but moral superiority is NOT one of them..."

Studie gave Todd and I the makin’s for those. They are hard to get exactly on the money ;-( I was thinking that making them proportinal just using an X design as in one of your previous blogs would be the best way to go.

-- Bob in WW ~ "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence

TS,

You’re right about the precision issue and the simpler X design; reduce the complexity to reduce the error. But remember that Phi (the golden ratio) is an irrational number that keeps going and going (i.e. 1.61803399…), so you can’t ever get it exactly.

Besides, I’m only using this as a improvisational design tool, and I figure the mathematical error in the tool is all part of making a work piece uniquely mine! Once I figure a couple of rough dimensions with the divider, the rest is all rulers and stop blocks!

Mark

-- -- "there are many good reasons to use old hand tools, but moral superiority is NOT one of them..."

Cool, I will copy the locking mecahnism and put this on mine.
Best thoughts,
MaFe

-- MAD F, the fanatical rhykenologist and vintage architect.