How to Easily Divide a Board into Equal Parts

Home improvement expert Danny Lipford shows you an easy way to divide a piece of wood into equal parts using little to no math.

Danny: You know your high school math teacher told you how important those math skills would be throughout life. Whether if you're a carpenter, you know how important it is to measure and cut accurately if not cost you a lot of time and money. Joe: That’s right Danny and here’s a technique that doesn’t require any math at all. And that allow you to divide a board at the equal parts. You certainly taking the ruler up with combination square, you se the zero mark on one edge and then on the other edge you pick the number that you want to divide the board into and in this case. Let's say you want it to divide into eight equal parts. And then you simply make a mark at each of the inch graduations. And then you repeat the process on this end then you just connect the marks and the board is automatically divided into eight equal parts. Danny: Now, I can see well that be really handy if you're cutting say four inch strips or bat in strips out of a piece of 1x6 like this but if you could use the same method on the plywood that would really be handy. Joe: well you can you need to use a tape measure and there is a little bit of math involve but its really easy. You start by hooking you end of your tape onto to the corner of the sheet and then you picked the number that’s easily divisible by number of parts. In this case let's say we want to divide the sheet into a six equal parts. So you set the 60-inch mark right on this edge and the you make a mark at 10-20-30-40-and 50. And then you move your tape down to the other end of the sheet and you repeat the process again keeping the 60 inch mark right on those end. And all you need to do is use a chalk line to snap a line between all the marks and automatically divided into equal parts.