TRADESMAN FIELD NOTEBOOK ibook

Reference tables, an engineering grid and room to think, in one book you can drop in a truck.

Most grid notebooks are laid out for a desk. This one is laid out for a tailgate, a scaffold plank and a dusty passenger seat. Turn a page sideways and the binding sits along the top edge, clear of your drawing hand, with the full grid above and a strip of ruled space along the bottom for dimensions and notes.

Seven reference pages sit at the front, so the numbers you need mid-job are three pages away instead of somewhere on your phone.

• 55 two-page spreads: a clean drawing grid on the right, an open note page on the left

• 5 x 5 engineering grid, five light squares to the inch with a heavier line on the full inch

• Angle arcs from 0 to 90 degrees in all four corners of every grid page, for setting out a pitch, a bevel or a miter straight off the paper

• Grid printed light, so pencil lines read clearly over the top and erase clean

• Note pages left free of rules, so the drawing on the other side of the sheet is never crowded

• Lumber and sheet goods: nominal against actual sizes for dimensional lumber and timbers, plus standard sheet thicknesses

• Board feet: per linear foot and for 8 ft and 12 ft pieces, so material take-offs need no arithmetic

• Fractions, decimals and millimetres: the full sixteenths chart, plus decimal feet converted to tape measurements for laser and wheel readings

• Rafter ready reckoner: common and hip or valley multipliers for every pitch from 1/12 to 12/12, with the angle for your speed square and a worked length at a 12 ft run

• Stair math: the comfort rules and code limits, a worked example, and a layout table that gives risers, riser height, treads and total run for total rises from 7 ft 6 in to 10 ft 6 in

• Circles, areas and weights: circumference and area by diameter, material weights per cubic foot, and quick area rules

• Fasteners and conversions: the nail pennyweight chart, screw and toe-nail rules of thumb, and imperial to metric factors

• 8.25 x 11 inches, 120 pages, white paper

• Owner and contact details page at the front

• Rough notes pages at the back for numbers and phone numbers

• Every length written in construction fractions, never in decimals

Built for carpenters, framers, cabinetmakers, deck builders, remodelers and anyone who has to work out a rafter, a stringer or a cut list standing up.