"ississauga" wrote in message
om...

Say I want to join a 3/4" high hardwood floor to a 1/4" high floor of
some other material. I would make a strip from oak thats 3/4" on one
side and 1/4" on the other. What tools would make this, I would like
various opinions. Also what is the angle the ramp should have? From
knowing the angle I could determine the width of the transition strip.

The angle would be a function of the ramp's height and width. The ramp's
height is the difference between the thickness of the 2 boards. You'd need
a scientific calculator or a scientific calculator program running in your
PC. The angle would be given by the arcTangent function of the result of
dividing the ramp's height by its width.

Angle = aTan ( height / width )

In the specific case of boards 3/4" and 1/4" thick, the formula becomes:

Angle = aTan ( 1 / [ 2 x width ] )

Here is an example: if the width of the ramp is 2.5" and the boards are 3/4"
and 1/4" thick:

Angle = aTan ( 1 / [2 x 2.5] )
Angle = aTan ( 1 / 5 )
Angle = aTan ( 0.2 )
Angle = 11.3 degrees

Go here http://www.calculator.org/jcalc98.html and you will see an online
calculator, for the above example type number "2" in the calculator, then
the multi[multiplication symbol "X" and then the width of the ramp "2.5" ,
press the equal sign "=", followed by the inverse function key "1/X" (just
bellow the orange "SHIFT" key, you should see "0.2" as a result, that value
is the Tangent function value of the angle, to find the angle just press the
"SHIFT" orange key and then press the "atan" key, the result should be
11.30993247402

If you want to run the calculator in your own PC, download the FREE program
here http://www.calculator.org/download.html


Guillermo