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Let's talk about fudge, not the eating kind but the kind we all use in our woodwork. A better way to put it would be to call it our "ERROR ALLOWANCE" or in real world terms, "TOLERANCE". ANY given dimension for ANY project has a tolerance for error. Some things can be plus or minus an inch and be perfectly acceptable, say a football stadium or something similar. Some things can be plus or minus .003 of an inch (approximately the diameter of a human hair) and be absolutely wonderful and work great. A good example here would be a drilled hole, plus or minus .003 on a DRILLED hole is actually pretty tight and would be more likely at plus or minus .005. So, how does that relate to our wood work? It's easy, anything we build has specifics we can TOLERATE and once we go beyond that, the project is a bust and we start over. I tend to go with a very rough rule of thumb that pretty well dictates, the smaller the project, the less TOLERANCE for error. The bigger the project, the greater the TOLERANCE for error. Obviously, too much of anything is bad for you and TOLERANCE on your projects is the same. I generally shoot for a sixteenth of inch in my normal building, not an extreme TOLERANCE but not excessively tight either.
Your work, your TOLERANCE for your work, can never be less then the smallest graduation on whatever you measure with. THAT point really narrows things down. If you only use a ruler and its smallest graduation is a sixteenth of an inch, you are incapable of measuring anything smaller than that because you are simply guessing. MOST of us when it gets down to the smallest graduations are guessing anyway. What this amounts to is padding our wished for tolerance with a little extra. This practice in the real world would no doubt earn us some healthy REJECTS stamped on our work since we would be building out of TOLERANCE items. A lot of things can be built OUT OF TOLERANCE and still be acceptable but we would ALL benefit greatly by trying harder to hit the TOLERANCE closer than we do. OUR work will reflect the improved quality with tighter fitting joints, better fitting drawers, and assemblies that ASSEMBLE! The bottom line is what are WE willing to accept? Set the goal high and keep aiming for it. The results are worth it.
Recommend this article... Last update : 15-02-2008 11:07
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