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Why not just take the old board with the notches cut into it for the posts, measure the distances between the last board and the posts, minus 5mm, and then mark those distances on the new board, put the old board on the new one (notches aligned with the marks) and draw the outline of the old board on the new?
I did mention that you could have crept the gaps wider - perhaps gapping at 9mm would have given you the 40mm you need over the 12 boards you've laid and the last board would have landed adjacent the posts
ps; if the boards aren't fixed down yet, re-gap them to take up the space and see how it looks: place the last board next to the post, the first board where it should go and measure the clear distance between the sides of the he between them. Divide that by the width of a board to get the number of boards that fit the gap, and take the part of the number after the decimal point; that's the fraction of the board width that needs to be evenly spread over the distance to create gaps. Multiply the decimal bit by the board width and divide it by the number of boards plus one
Example:
The hole is 1055mm wide. A board is 100mm wide
1055 divided by 100 is 10.55. The hole needs 10 boards and .55 is spread out for the gaps
.55 multiplied by 100mm is 55mm worth of gaps. 10 boards creates 11 gaps
55mm for gaps divided by 11 gaps is 5mm per gap
--
Example 2:
The hole is 882mm wide. A board is 100mm wide
882 / 100 = 8.82
8 boards, 9 gaps
Gaps total 0.82 of a board or 82mm
82mm divided by 9 is 9.11111.. so gap at 9mm. Over this small a number of boards you don't worry about the .1111.. but if you were laying hundreds of boards periodically you'd gap one at 10mm to keep on track
--
Example 3:
Hole is 1000mm
Exactly 10 boards in the gap
Take it down by one board, so we have 9 boards and 10 gaps. The gaps total 100mm, and there are 10 of them, so gap at 10mm
---
All this same gapping rule can be followed if you decided to notch the last board around the posts, however the customer wants it to look, and then you follow the process of measuring the hole, finding out the number of boards that go in it, finding the remainder given over to gap and dividing it up
In terms of actually installing a gap, it is better to work out the measures your boards should be at rather than measuring 5mm off the edge of each board.
This means if you've decided your gap should be 5mm and your boards are supposedly 100mm then your board edges should land at:
105, 219, 315, 420, 525, 630 ....
You should measure and mark those on the battens, then lay the boards so the edges line up
If half your boards are 99mm and you use a 5mm spacer to space off the last board when installing the next one you land 5mm short after 10 boards meaning the gap on the last one of visually (obviously) twice the size of the others.. Laying to a measure prevents that. If you have any boards that are really wacky sizes, better to adjust the measure to take account of those
I did mention that you could have crept the gaps wider - perhaps gapping at 9mm would have given you the 40mm you need over the 12 boards you've laid and the last board would have landed adjacent the posts
ps; if the boards aren't fixed down yet, re-gap them to take up the space and see how it looks: place the last board next to the post, the first board where it should go and measure the clear distance between the sides of the he between them. Divide that by the width of a board to get the number of boards that fit the gap, and take the part of the number after the decimal point; that's the fraction of the board width that needs to be evenly spread over the distance to create gaps. Multiply the decimal bit by the board width and divide it by the number of boards plus one
Example:
The hole is 1055mm wide. A board is 100mm wide
1055 divided by 100 is 10.55. The hole needs 10 boards and .55 is spread out for the gaps
.55 multiplied by 100mm is 55mm worth of gaps. 10 boards creates 11 gaps
55mm for gaps divided by 11 gaps is 5mm per gap
--
Example 2:
The hole is 882mm wide. A board is 100mm wide
882 / 100 = 8.82
8 boards, 9 gaps
Gaps total 0.82 of a board or 82mm
82mm divided by 9 is 9.11111.. so gap at 9mm. Over this small a number of boards you don't worry about the .1111.. but if you were laying hundreds of boards periodically you'd gap one at 10mm to keep on track
--
Example 3:
Hole is 1000mm
Exactly 10 boards in the gap
Take it down by one board, so we have 9 boards and 10 gaps. The gaps total 100mm, and there are 10 of them, so gap at 10mm
---
All this same gapping rule can be followed if you decided to notch the last board around the posts, however the customer wants it to look, and then you follow the process of measuring the hole, finding out the number of boards that go in it, finding the remainder given over to gap and dividing it up
In terms of actually installing a gap, it is better to work out the measures your boards should be at rather than measuring 5mm off the edge of each board.
This means if you've decided your gap should be 5mm and your boards are supposedly 100mm then your board edges should land at:
105, 219, 315, 420, 525, 630 ....
You should measure and mark those on the battens, then lay the boards so the edges line up
If half your boards are 99mm and you use a 5mm spacer to space off the last board when installing the next one you land 5mm short after 10 boards meaning the gap on the last one of visually (obviously) twice the size of the others.. Laying to a measure prevents that. If you have any boards that are really wacky sizes, better to adjust the measure to take account of those
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