Sitting here trying to figgure out why I needed a Construction MAster 5 calculater…
What do you primarily rely on it for?
Kinda neat functions, but I am just diving into the booklet. I somehow don’t think it’ll help with laying up copper on a roof, but I could be wrong.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
let’s be entrophatic, you start
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Replies
I bought mine 3 years ago and never have touched it. I love having it though, just to show off. Maybe I should read the instructions, something that I usually have a great aversion to.
Btween it and a cell phone and the satellite remote...I am confused..went to change the TV channel and I found the area of a circle and woke up mom in PA. at the same time...DOH! Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
let's be entrophatic, you start
Someday we'll stumble upon the right combination of buttons and then the big one will happen...whatever that is.
well, I got a porn channel trying to figgure out the sqrt of Pi, if the ICBMS launch, I didn't do it, I swear. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
let's be entrophatic, you start
mostly figuring out stairs, balluster layout, and the occasional brain fart.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
Gracias, that is doable. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
let's be entrophatic, you start
I have four. One desktop size that stays.... get this... on my desk. I also have another older desk top one with a printer function that doesn't have all the features of the Pro Desk Top. Then I keep my original IV in my briefcase.... that was retired for the CM Pro Trig Plus that nests in my belt at all times.
I'm lost without it. There's not much it does that I can't do with a pencil, framing square, and a scrap of wood. But, it takes the human element out of working through a field of numbers.
What I mean is, I feel a whole lot safer "cutting a roof" at my desk with multiple pitches and multiple plate heights with a calculator. On site, it's even more important I think. Brain farts seem to happen more frequently on site because of the additional distractions. You're half way thorugh figuring a cut sheet out, and the lumber truck shows up, then you go back to your math and the plumber stops by looking for the GC, then you get back to your math and one of your guys asks you where the plans went, etc. etc. etc.
If I were working long hand, I'd be much less inclined to double check my math too. It's really hard to pick up on a written math mistake as your brain see's what you wrote the first time and recognized it as "ok", even when it's not.
Anyway, CM's are great for cutting roofs, calculating cut sheets for your door and window penetration wall packages, squaring up foundations, squaring up anything really, calculating volume for concrete and such, calculating square footage, laying out equal spacing (centers) for ballusters, walls of windows, deck and railing posts etc.
I think it's like any good tool. The more you use it, the more ways you find to use it, and the better you get at using it. I believe it's also very important to have a good foundation of the principles behind the math as well. The calculator just compliments this fundamental knowledge.
gotcha...I'll carry it along in the van. Too much junk on the desktop already. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
let's be entrophatic, you start
Sicky notes and calculators - Couldn't function without 'em. (-:I add things up with my calculator(s), then check it in my head. (Or the other way around) I deal with so many numbers they lose their meaning unless I pay close attention.
A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning to grow in rows [Doug Larson]
Well, I use mine all the time for basic math. Yes, I can add a stack of fractions on paper and even in my head if there are just a few, but I'd rather not. This week I divided a couple of long lengths into equal pieces, did a couple of rise/run calcs to get diagonals and angles, and checked whether or not my roofer did his math correctly when he billed me. The CM lives right in the top of my main toolbox... gotta have it.
That $50 calculator is money well spent. Most carpenters in our area use it primarily for squaring things up with the diagonal/rise/run/pitch feature. The next most useful would be simple +-*/= type of stuff. I also really like being able to multiply inches by feet by feet and have the answer automatically in cubic yards (and I don't even admit to owning concrete tools unless forced).
Years back the rough-carpentry portion of our crew poured a bunch of large pier footings with very exacting attachment points for an engineered steel building. With a crane on site and the first beam being a few inches short of making the round pegs fit into the round holes, the job ground to a halt and the boss was suddenly paying the visiting erection crew to spend their days drinking beer until a fix was engineered. Two otherwise sharp guys who "forgot" their mandatory calculators spent 6 hrs. messing up the original measurements by pulling a complicated series of very long diagonals without a quick method of double checking their work. When 2 prepared carps were asked to find out what happened, it only took two hours and a few dozen quick rise/run/diag calculations to completely re-string the dimensions, double check all measurements from the reference point and isolate the two problem footings. That experience and other smaller goofs that could have been easily prevented have made a believer out of me.
Cheers,
Don
use it all the time
rather tha cross taping a deck enter RISE as one dimention, RUN as the other, you got the hipopotomus (he he) of your deck great for one man jobs.
cut rafters: split your buiding width, minus half of the ridge, add horizontal overhang
plug in pitch i.e. 6 INCH, plug in numbers from above and hit RUN, press DIAG and thats your rafter length
A little trick I learned to check the condition of the display. Press % twice and the whole display lights up. Probably programmed by calculated industries for quality control at the factory.