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Had a talk with a framer about layout nails...
Ran into a retired framer at the lumber yard yesterday and he said I was wasting time marking every stud location with a tape. He showed me how he just snaps a chalk line and uses a speed square to mark 16 inch centers by eye after the first one. I tried it on a wall this morning and cut my layout time in half, anyone else do it that way?
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casey68226d ago
That's a good trick and it makes sense if you're doing a lot of walls in a row. I've been framing for about twenty years now and I still see guys arguing over this all the time. The old timers definitely have their shortcuts that save serious time once you get the feel for it. I think the key is just getting that first mark dead on with your tape and then trusting your eye and the square after that. If you're off by a sixteenth on the second stud it's not going to hurt anything, but if you're rushing and get sloppy it'll mess up your sheeting.
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burns.jenny25d ago
Oh boy, I've been there. A sixteenth here and there really does add up, especially if you're working with 4x8 sheets and trying to keep your edges tight. I always tell the younger guys to double-check their layout on the first few studs until it becomes muscle memory, because that's where the real time savings come from.
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martinez.kim26d ago
Yeah, but a sixteenth adds up fast over a whole wall.
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