# Peg Spacing



## jjmill1980 (Dec 15, 2009)

I am trying to figure the math out for spacing pegs. The issue is if you just dived the width by the number of pegs plus 1 (total width/(# of pegs+1), the spacing of the two outside pegs is larger than the spacing of the inside pegs. 

Any one have a calculator for this?


Thanks


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## jjmill1980 (Dec 15, 2009)

Well i finally got my head around the math and I dumped it into a spreadsheet. If I find out that I got it right I will polish it up and post it.


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## Woodsnot (Feb 21, 2012)

The way I would do it is to divide the length of the board by the number of pegs. Then I would start the first peg at half the distance of the peg separation. Like this: 24" board and 4 pegs- 24/4=6. Each peg will be 6 inches apart but start the first peg at half the distance apart which would be 3"s. thatway you will have pegs at 3", 9", 15" and 21". First and last peg will be the same distance from the end.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

What Mike said.


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## reikimaster (Sep 29, 2005)

If you want pegs evenly spaced from each other AND from the ends of the board it's:

board-length divided by (number-of-pegs + 2)


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## Woodsnot (Feb 21, 2012)

Charlie, the hard part about doing it that way is then you would have to convert decimal to fraction and some fractions are not real numbers. If you have a 27" board and 5 pegs, your spacing would be 27/(5+2) = 3.8571428...


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Mike; do it in metric then. That's the whole point of metric. 
(Never thought I'd see the day that I'd have something nice to say about metric measure...)


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## Dmeadows (Jun 28, 2011)

Woodsnot said:


> Charlie, the hard part about doing it that way is then you would have to convert decimal to fraction and some fractions are not real numbers. If you have a 27" board and 5 pegs, your spacing would be 27/(5+2) = 3.8571428...


The nearest 1/16th of an inch is within 63 thousandths of an inch! If you can see that small an error, probably you don't need a ruler, let alone calculations. lol


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## reikimaster (Sep 29, 2005)

Woodsnot said:


> Charlie, the hard part about doing it that way is then you would have to convert decimal to fraction and some fractions are not real numbers. If you have a 27" board and 5 pegs, your spacing would be 27/(5+2) = 3.8571428...


OK, but .857 is really really close to .859 which is 55/64 and that's 1/64 away from 7/8.
And odd number of pegs means you have one in the center. Go out 3-7/8 each way from the middle and you place 2 more pegs. And 3-7/8 from each of those would place the last 2. And I'm betting they're so close you can't tell the end pins are 2/64 too close to the edge. 

Decimal to fraction equivalents should get you so close nobody can tell. 

OR... you can go metric. 27 inches is 685.8mm. Call it 698.
698 / (5+2) = 98.428
Millimeters are pretty small. I'd go out 98mm from center for 2 pegs on either side of center and then 99mm from those for the next pair. 

I realize your 27" board with 5 pegs may have been hypothetical, but the math still works and you just need to get it into units you're comfortable with.


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## Woodsnot (Feb 21, 2012)

Decimal to fraction equivalents should get you so close nobody can tell. 

A good rope and knot system will get you close also:sarcastic: I guess it's what you're comfortable using.

If the pegs are for joining two boards, it won't really matter where you put them because nobody will ever see them. ; )


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Mike; me again . If you're worried about incremental differences caused by actually measuring, figure out your desired measurement _once_ on a piece of smooth paper, transfer that measurement to a pair of dividers, and step off the spacing using the instrument. Far more accurate than using a rule.


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## jjmill1980 (Dec 15, 2009)

WOW, kinda crazy to see that this was dug up after two years!
Thanks for the input guys! The project I was working on at the time actually used double rob hooks and not pegs (may have helped out a little, had I mentioned that sooner). I wanted these hooks, I don’t remember if there was an odd or even number, evenly spaced. 
The issue I was fretting over, which is magnified by wide robe hooks, but is still there when you are talking about pegs, is getting even spacing by accounting for the width of the hook/peg. 
For example say I have a 24" board and 4 pegs and I use the (length/(# of pegs + 2)) method. I would center my pegs/hooks every 4". Well say my pegs are 1/2" diameter, now I have 3 3/4" on my outside spacing (peg-to-edge of board) and 3 1/2" spacing on the inside (peg-to-peg). Yeah, it's only 1/4" difference, but if it is a noticeable difference in spacing I would want it large enough to look intentional. So to me 1/4" difference, in this case, is a larger difference than 2".
Now this all gets magnified when you are talking about a double robe hook that is 1 1/4” wide. Using the same scenario, you would have an outside spacing of 3 3/8” and an inside spacing of 2 3/4”. 
So the point was, because I wanted all of the hooks spaced evenly, I had to account for the width of the hooks. It did not appear that a simple length/# of pegs + X was going to work here. So I came up with a spreadsheet to do this and it has worked very well.


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