Tool Calculator

A sheet of plywood isn’t actualy what most people think it is: it’s not a flat piece with a predictable weight that stays the same … Read more

Hole. Every fence begins with one. How deep is yours? Is it going to sag in a few seasons…or last decades? People tend to treat … Read more

Your new deck seems to be groaning under the weight of twenty friends who have just arrived for an impromptu backyard burger night. It’s true: … Read more

To the eye of a fabricator, tube bending appears to be magic: the person takes a piece of tubing and bends it to match whatever … Read more

A steel rod weigh something; put it in your hands and you feel it. But if you’re designing a bill of materials for machine shop … Read more

The left side starts out great; then by post three the spacing get wider, and the pickets begin to wander from their perfect line. Why? … Read more

Concreting is always something you forget about until it’s too late. And when it is, you don’t know how much to get, and you don’t … Read more

The way most home owners estimate their ceiling drywall projects mirrors how they estimate their flooring projects. They multiply length times width and then divide … Read more

So now you look at your attic full of yellow fiberglass. It’s sagged down low. It insulates, sure, but gravity and time has made it … Read more

Measuring your house for vinyl siding is tricky because there are many small holes and shapes, like triangles and rectangles, that reduce total square footage. … Read more

When most people imagine their roof they visualize a plain old triangle. What that geometry doesn’t show is the additional labor involved. A few degrees … Read more

Once we get to the valleys and hips, though, the roof framing becomes more about thinking in diagonals then straight lines, and this is where … Read more

For insulation, it’s the same as paint: we’re casual about the purchase; we’ll get what’s on sale or nearest our budget. The result? It never … Read more

There’s one noise you know from a machine shop. It starts off like high pitched whine until it becomes a shriek, and then finally ends … Read more