Convert degrees to length?

[Ramses]

How would one convert degrees to length?

As in: a tube is standing straight up on a flat surface, the tube
measures 89.8 degrees rather than 90 (with the digital level
centered onto the flat surface). Is there a formula for how much
material should be removed/added to bring it to true 90 degrees?

 

[Yuriman]

Yeah, what you need is some trigonometry - sine / cosine / tangent.

Let's say your tube is 10cm wide, and is leaning 0.2°. If you make a triangle with the bottom, the information you have is one angle and the "adjacent" side, and you need the opposite side (let's call this "x"), so you use tangent (tangent θ = opposite / adjacent).

tangent (0.2°) = ~0.0035 = x / 10

Therefore, X = 10 * 0.0035cm = 0.035cm

Tangent of 0.2° will always be ~0.0035, so just plug your actual tube diameter in place of "10" in the above equation.

EDIT: θ aka theta is your angle. Make sure your calculator is using degrees, if you're plugging degrees in, or you'll get a weird answer.