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Tim Daneliuk[_3_] Tim Daneliuk[_3_] is offline
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Default Building Square Walls On New Construction Sill Plates


I have a use case where I want to build a wall on new construction.
Inevitably, the foundation pours are not perfectly level. Over long
runs, they can be off several inches. So, I want to build the wall
to the sill plate with studs of different lengths to account for this
so that the top of the wall *is* level. Because of the long horizontal
runs involved, I want to keep the accuracy of the cuts to 1/16 or
even 1/32 (to avoid accumulation error).

However, measuring and cutting long studs is slow and not that accurate
with just a tape and a chop saw.

My instinct is to mount a laser distance finder on the left side of the
chop saw blade aiming the laser to the right (I am right handed) and
coming up with some kind of easily clamped/removed target that can
be consistently placed on the right hand end of the board. That way,
as the board is slid left and right, the laser would record the
effective distance from blade to board end.

However, this would require the ability to dial in an offset into the
laser distance tool to correct for the distance from the blade to
the actual laser tool mount mount. IOW, the tool has to be calibrated
for the "real" distance from blade to board end.

Questions:

1) Do distance finders allow offsets like that to be dialed in?
2) Is there a better/faster/smarter way to do this?
3) Is there already a tooling system for just this problem?

P.S. This question is actually on behalf of a friend of mine who is
a professional builder. I first suggested mounting a long
auxiliary fence on the right side of his chop saw (with proper
support) and then sticking on a self-adhesive tape to the top
of it. He said he's already doing this but it's too slow for
large projects. You have to run back-and-forth from the end
of the board to the blade to get it right. In some cases,
he's using sticks up to 20' in length so it's a fair walk.

Ideas?