Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)
Hi:This last week, at my dear wife's suggestion, I built a “Growth Ruler” as a Christmas gift for my eldest son's family. Keeping in mind that my son is 6' 3” and that kids these days are often taller than their parent, I scaled the ruler from 2 feet to 7 feet.The ruler is constructed like a row of puzzle pieces (see pattern) connected together with dowels. I used Baltic Birch plywood, which is really nice to work with, and oak dowels.After tracing the pattern onto the plywood, each of the puzzle pieces was first pre-drilled where the dowels would be located. Then I took the wood to the bandsaw and to cut the straight lines. A 1/4” bandsaw blade moved freely in the drill holes, and allowed me to turn the wood as needed.Each puzzle piece is 6” square on the edges, not including the tang. The triangular cutout on the right side are 1” apart. The notches on the left side are 6” apart.I built a measuring slide that glides up and down the ruler to aid in measuring height. The slide can be fixed in position with a wing-nut and screw.The finish is clear coat with a topcoat of paste was. The numbers and dots were cut out of sign makers vinyl. I generated the text for these letters on my computer.All in all, this was a very enjoyable pre-Christmas project.Billbjudt@me.com