While a sliding T-bevel gauge is indispensable for angled work, I’ve often wished that mine was marked off in degrees, like a protractor. A T-bevel may provide an excellent way to match the angle of a splayed leg or an inside corner, but it is a less-than-ideal tool.

When you must work from a known degree setting, such as when cutting compound angles, making miters or polygons, or laying out dovetails, a bevel gauge needs help. Also, when you hold the bevel against a miter-saw fence or a tablesaw miter gauge to set the angle of the cut against the sawblade, it’s easy to throw off the setting. And then, because you never had a reading on the actual angle, you have to spend time sneaking up on the cut. The Bevel Setter is etched with precise settings from 0° to 60°, with a long stop to lock in any setting. On its reverse are common dovetail angles and 12 standard settings for polygonal work. (Quick, you have to make an octagonal frame, what’s the bevel setting for the miter cuts? This tool will give you an answer fast.) The tool is also marked in 1/16-in. graduations on each long edge.

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