Hi,
I need to scribe a piece of wood to fit between the sides of a door jamb in about a 5′ wide finished doorway.. This is for a threshold where a wood floor meets a tile floor. I am assuming that you Pros have a trick to do this and get a tight fit. Can you enlighten me?
Thanks
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I'm assuming that you need to scribe the saddle because the door jambs are not parralel to each other. If that's the case, an easy way to do it is to take 2 pieces of wood that (toghether) are longer than the span. Place one against one side and one against the other side. Tack them together and there's your template.
I'm certainly no expert at this sort of thing, but if faced with this problem I'd probably get a couple of pieces of some sort of sheet scrap -- maybe thin plywood, maybe vinyl tile or fairly stiff linoleum -- about 8x8. Tape down near the jamb edge and scribe with a divider. Cut out scribed area on the two pieces, fit the pieces in place, and then somehow attach a piece of lath or such between them to hold the two in proper relation to each other. Use this assembly to scribe the threshold. (Don't lose track of inside vs outside direction.)
Geo.
I'll give you another description tomorrow.
Make a pattern out of some kind of heavy paper. Have it as wide as the board that will become the threshhold, but let it be about an inch or two short of the opening width between jambs.
Staple it down in place beween the jambs, and then scribe the angles needed to match each jamb--you do this with a pair of dividers set to about 1-1/2 " wide. You're simply going to use the pencil end of the dividers to make a line on the pattern that is exactly parallel to the jamb, against which you slide the steel point of the dividers. Be sure to keep the dividers at 90 degrees to the jamb's face as you slide them along.
Next, remove the pattern and staple it down on the threshhold material so that the ends of the material stick out beyond the pattern. Then, with your dividers still at the same setting, turn them so that the steel end follows the pencil line on the pattern, and the pencil end marks the line on the threshhold material. Do this for each end, and then cut to the lines.
If you don't have dividers, you use a small block of wood, about 1-1/2 x 1-1/2, as a spacer--you slide it along the jamb face with your pencil held tightly to the side opposite the jamb. Then you use the same block to reverse the line from the pattern to the jamb material.
Maybe Calvin can explain this more clearly.
You made it pretty clear, and it's probably a better (or at least faster) scheme than what I proposed.
Geo
What everyone said above-add this.
Make templates for each end. Cut them, fit them. Get it so right you can't stand it.
With those two templates in position-tape a long pc of paper/cardboard/thin material. Now you've got the length and the detail.
Remove carefully and place on your material-outline the ends-cut. If you can, backcut the ends-it'll tip down into the opening easier and allow minor adjustments to the cut w/o cutting through the whole thickness.
or
undercut the jamb to fit your pc and slide it in.