Hi Steve

You're absolutely right, and I know what you mean about being picky. I'm a scientist, and I like precision, too. Sometimes, though, people who are new to kiltmaking get bogged down in lots of numbers, and what I described is a reasonable approximation (though not entirely accurate!) for a kilt with traditional-sized pleats.

The kilts that I make have much smaller pleats than yours (more like 3/4" than 2"), so the depth is, in fact, pretty close to half the distance between marks. If you put marks every 8" for a self-color kilt, and have pleats that are 3/4" in size (the "reveal"), the pleat depth will be exactly (8-3/4)/2, or 3 5/8", only 3/8" less than the rough calculation of 4". On the other hand, if you have a reveal of 2", you can't get a very good approximation by dividing the distance between pleat marks in half. (8-2)/2 would give a 3" pleat depth, a full inch less than the rough approximation of 4".

When you're pleating to the sett in a tartan, you go over more than a full repeat to get to the next pleat, and that pretty much compensates for the amount taken up in the reveal, if you make traditional-sized pleats. So, yeh, dividing the distance by two is a less close approximation for a self-color kilt or a kilt pleated to the stripe than it is for a kilt pleated to the sett, but it's a decent rough approximation. If you want to know the pleat depth precisely, you need to subtract the pleat size (reveal) from the distance between pleat marks before you divide by two.

Thanks, Steve, for being picky!!

Cheers,

Barb