I'm putting up drywall (actually wood panel but the application is the same)
for the kitchen and I found it very tedious to measure with ruler and
measuring tape.

I have to measure

width of the drywall needed, both at the top and the bottom in case it is
not square
height of the drywall (some wall passes under a window frame, so the height
varies)
openings for receptacles, switches, pipes

then I have to transfer the measurements to the drywall and cut them. This
is time consuming and error prone.

Is there any device that would ease the measuring part of this job?



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"John" wrote in message
...
I'm putting up drywall (actually wood panel but the application is the
same) for the kitchen and I found it very tedious to measure with ruler
and measuring tape.

I have to measure width of the drywall needed, both at the top and the
bottom in case it is not square
height of the drywall (some wall passes under a window frame, so the
height varies) openings for receptacles, switches, pipes then I have to
transfer the measurements to the drywall and cut them. This is time
consuming and error prone.

Is there any device that would ease the measuring part of this job?


I don't know of one. You could use a story stick - use any stick to
transfer one distance to another location - but you will still have to do
this for each 'measurement/ distance'. It might be a lttle faster.

What I have in mind is something like this:

a laser projecting device that I can put in the kitchen, then aim the laser
dot at a reference point (e.g. the corner of where the drywall should go),
push a button to store the reference point, then aim it at another point
(e.g. another corner of the wall) and push a botton, then aim it at a corner
of a receptacle, push a button, etc

then I take this device to the garage, and it projects all the reference
points on a piece of drywall that I can then mark and cut. Does something
like this exist?

If not, another possibility is to use a digital camera to take a photo of
the desired location, then use some software to mark and measure the
distances and angles. I know some counter-top makers use this method (saw it
on TV), but I don't know what software they use. The software would need a
way to calibrate and compensate for the camera lens distortion. This method
only generates a list of measurements which I still have to manually
transfer to the drywall, so it is not as nice.



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Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"John" wrote in message
...
What I have in mind is something like this:

a laser projecting device that I can put in the kitchen, then aim the
laser dot at a reference point (e.g. the corner of where the drywall
should go), push a button to store the reference point, then aim it at
another point (e.g. another corner of the wall) and push a botton, then
aim it at a corner of a receptacle, push a button, etc

then I take this device to the garage, and it projects all the reference
points on a piece of drywall that I can then mark and cut. Does something
like this exist?

I've seen them when the pros did a drywall job on the house across the
street from me. After cutting, they put a GPS tag on the drywall to be sure
it was taken to the right room and properly oriented. There were two guys
on the drywall team, two (lesser skilled) guys doing the transport from the
room to the temporary shop setup, then one guy did all the cutting with a
CNC router. Initially, there was a setup tech to put the GPS system on the
house and make the tags for hte machine shop.

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:

I've seen them when the pros did a drywall job on the house across the
street from me. After cutting, they put a GPS tag on the drywall to be sure
it was taken to the right room and properly oriented. There were two guys
on the drywall team, two (lesser skilled) guys doing the transport from the
room to the temporary shop setup, then one guy did all the cutting with a
CNC router. Initially, there was a setup tech to put the GPS system on the
house and make the tags for hte machine shop.

Sounds like an open shop operation. Unions usually require two guys
for the CNC work.

R

Is there any device that would ease the measuring part of this job?

Yes, a 48" drywall square. I just bought one for $ 12.99

What I have in mind is something like this:

Heres one way to do it:

Start by buying a 48" drywall square.I just picked up one for $ 12.99
Then. for example.. a 4 X 8' piece with one box cutout.
Measure out from one SIDEwall to the box.. lets say its 16 1/2" allow
"X"" for the box so the box cutout is: 16 1/2" ~ 20 1/2" "out"
I allow an extra 1/8" to 3/16" for "fitting" . I do the same with the
distance from the other ENDwall and get the measurement "down"
once you have the two sets of measurements, use the drywall square to mark
out the true position of the
box.. then I place a box over the marked area, draw a line around it and
cut.

If its an octagon box (essentially round) make the two measurements out to
the center point. Repeat on the board and cut out the circle.
"Measure twice, cut once" is a famous quote
Practice practice..you'll get better

Now if you had a sheet of cardboard from an old fridge box..you could
practice on that.

The pros now start to hang the board intact and make the cutouts in place
with a RotoZip.
I bought a "no name" Craftsman RotoZip clone at Sears for $ 59.00 and it has
a circle cutter,
side handle, and even a plunge router type housing that comes with it.

"Rudy" wrote in message
news:qJGrg.133141$Mn5.30766@pd7tw3no...
What I have in mind is something like this:

Heres one way to do it:

Start by buying a 48" drywall square.I just picked up one for $ 12.99
Then. for example.. a 4 X 8' piece with one box cutout.
Measure out from one SIDEwall to the box.. lets say its 16 1/2" allow
"X"" for the box so the box cutout is: 16 1/2" ~ 20 1/2" "out"
I allow an extra 1/8" to 3/16" for "fitting" . I do the same with the
distance from the other ENDwall and get the measurement "down"
once you have the two sets of measurements, use the drywall square to mark
out the true position of the
box.. then I place a box over the marked area, draw a line around it and
cut.

If its an octagon box (essentially round) make the two measurements out to
the center point. Repeat on the board and cut out the circle.
"Measure twice, cut once" is a famous quote
Practice practice..you'll get better

Now if you had a sheet of cardboard from an old fridge box..you could
practice on that.

The pros now start to hang the board intact and make the cutouts in place
with a RotoZip.
I bought a "no name" Craftsman RotoZip clone at Sears for $ 59.00 and it
has a circle cutter,
side handle, and even a plunge router type housing that comes with it.

I've seen this done. I've also seen the wires inside that box destroyed.
If you used the outside of the box to guide the RotoZip the cover plate
won't cover. If you use the inside of that box as a guide, you'll be doing
damage to the wires in that box. If you cram those wires deep into the box
beyond the reach of the RotoZip, you'll be crimping the radius of the bends
in those wires beyond the 5 times the diameter of the wire that is
permissible. That stresses the insulation which can and will cause shorts
and electrical fires later.

I know some people do this. :-) Sheetrockers and electricians have to dig
deeply into their box of diplomatic skills to get along. I don't want to
cause drywallers any extra pain, but I do not believe this is good practice
on a regular basis. It's actually worse than the tape and bed guys wiping
the mud off their blades in the switch boxes, innit :-)

Randy R. Cox

"Randy Cox" wrote on 08 Jul 2006:

If you used the outside of the box to guide the
RotoZip the cover plate won't cover.

Huh? If you use the outside of the box, once you get good at using
the RotoZip, the cut should be barely a bit's width wider than the
box.

Even if the person hanging the drywall is sloppy, the finisher can
easily finish around the box.

I've seen much worse work from hangers pre-measuring for the box or
using lipstick to mark the back of the drywall.

You are using a tracing bit, right?


--
Doug Boulter

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