Drivel Starved Nation:

Nothing is more frustrating than getting old and not being able to remember basic geometry. I can’t even remember what I had for lunch today…

In my previous post, I shared the news about two angle setting reference tools that are going into production. Whether you make a purchase or not, head over to Infinity Software and buy their PowerOne Calculator for your mobile device. It’s a whopping $4.99.(Caveat: We have no financial interest in this company).

Five or six years ago I met the owner (they are located here in Portland) and this app is the coolest deal ever. Basically, it is an open source calculator that can be customized for just about every mathematical need imaginable. I wrote a program for the AngleMaster Prov2 (it is FREE) but it will help any woodworker regardless of the angle setting tool.

Here are the sections of the Angle Master Calculator, (these were pulled off of my iPad, but it is the same on phones);

If you own the AngleMaster Pro v2 and you need to measure an unknown obtuse angle you punch in the number on the caliper and viola – look what you learn;  in this example I typed in the caliper reading of 52.60 mm and a wealth of information is instantly presented.

Enter any obtuse angle, in this case 120 degrees, to learn that you will need to set the caliper to 63.66mm.

Whenever you tilt your saw blade, that is technically know as a “Tilt Angle” which is the deviation from 90 degrees. If you want to tilt your saw blade 10 degrees, set the caliper to 22.26 mm

Deviation from horizontal is an “Elevation Angle”, notice the difference in the caliper setting from the same 10 degree example above…

Back in the old days, before there were affordable protractors, angles were describe as ratio of height to width. Here we learn that an 8:1 dovetail angle is 7.125 degrees.

Here’s how to calculate the angle with Rise and Run…

If you make segmented bowls or similar type of projects, this is awesome…

Here’s a fun application; you are making a 90 degree mitered frame but have chosen to use dissimilar stock widths. 45 degrees is NOT your answer…

This one is BIG. Here is everything you need to know to make compound miters for closed forms…

What if you want to make a compound mitered hand rail, but the corner is not square? Here ya go…

This is cool, plug in any two dimensions of a right triangle to find the third…

If you make a circular table with a veneered top, here is how you calculate your edge banding requirements…

OK, that is all great, but in the PowerOne calculator, there are over 500 custom calculators you can download to the app for free. There are dedicated calculators for business, construction, conversions, engineering, finance, health and fitness, investing, mathematics, real estate, science, and much more.

My favorite non-woodworking calculator you ask? I like the 205 Day Weight calculator. This will calculate the theoretical weight of a calf at 205 days using birth weight, birth date, weaning weight, and weaning date. HOW COOL IS THAT????? (You can take the boy out of Iowa but can never take Iowa out of the boy!)

$4.99.

Buy it – you will never regret it.

We also provided a step-by-step instruction on how to find the AngleMaster Pro program I wrote within the PowerOne app in our forums here.

Think $4.99 is OUTRAGEOUS? You can get the same info here for free. How cool is that?

-John