Woodworking Math: Cut It Once

What this book teaches

The arithmetic behind a real project, not a plan you follow blind: what a board foot actually is and why the sticker price is not a mystery; why three sixteen-inch strips do not come out of a forty-eight-inch sheet, and how to nest a whole carcase into one; the diagonal check, and exactly how far out of square you really are; dividing a span evenly without the fence-post trap; writing every joint as a fraction of the stock so you never look a size up again; the mitre setting for any number of sides; why two five-degree leans make a 7.05° bevel, not ten; how thickness and span decide whether a shelf sags within L/360, and why glued layers are stiffer by the square of the count; and the surface — the grit ladder as arithmetic, and how a tin's coverage figure is secretly a film thickness. Every chapter also carries a boxed, skippable Does It Pay? section — what the numbers cost, save and sell for.