I generally buy really high end tools, particularly for measuring, and I actually own two Starrett Hardened head Combination squares (as well as fixed machinist squares etc)
Problem is – they are down in the machine shop, and the table saw etc are up in the heated garage
So, I’m thinking of getting another one. OK, the default is another Starrett, or an old Browne & Sharpe, etc
But I wonder, what is “Good enough” for day to day in the wood shop. I’m looking at say a nice iGaging set – In things like micrometers etc they are the “They aren’t name brand, but they are OK most of the time” – The squares are about 1/2 the price of a Starrett set (They are the ones Rockler Sells for like $36), where a Starrett will run you $150-160
Good enough? Or shell out for another Starrett (realizing I can pull out the Starrett when doing things like setting up saws and the like)
Replies
Good enough and even if they're not perfect it's a tool that is easy enough to correct.
I needed another square and grabbed a 6" one from the BORG. It stopped locking after three weeks. Never again.
My other squares are old. I didn't pay much for any of them. If you're not in a hurry, they aren't hard to find, and the quality is great.
My favorite is a 100 year old Lufkin double square, in 9 inch size. No 64ths, so it's easier to read.
I found an old 12" Stanley square that has only 16ths and 8ths on it. Made me very happy.
Once upon a time a bunch of manufacturers made them. I wish they still did.
Check these out. PEC measuring tools are very nice, accurate, and as well made as Starrett (well, almost anyway). The factory blems are a great deal. I would challenge you to find any blemish on the ones I have:
https://taytools.com/collections/tools-blemished-cosmetic-seconds
+1 on PEC. The 4” double square is the most used in my shop. Beefy with a thick rule, locks down and stays that way, and is square.
Yes to the PEC tools from Taytools, but no to their current supplier of combination / double squares. I have several of the PEC blemished tools and am very happy with them, but they only sell them as blemished, and are out at the moment. Their standard ones have the same problem as all lower quality combination squares - they don't lock down securely, nor stay that way. However they did come with a no 1/32 or 1/64 markings, so they had that going for them, as well as the fact that Taytools is great, they just refunded my purchase.
It's pretty rare for me to reach for a combo square. Most times I'll grab one out of a graduated set of 4 fixed machinist squares that are on the wall over my bench... I got the B&S set for under $100. I have a couple of double squares for "fix & hold" measures that I need to keep for a bit, but they are used more like marking gauges than squares.
I second Mj. I use fixed squares for most things and the combos exactly as he mentioned, to hold measurements for later.
In my mind, it would be about the scale being accurate between the brands. Maybe it's not a real concern since you can simply just check whatever you do end up getting and return it if its off.
But I'd go with the Starrett if my others are Starrett, just for the surefire continuity.
Mixing brands messes with my head for some reason. especially when it comes to measuring tools.
What sort of measurements do you feel are critical - needing to be accurate to, say, 0.1mm / 4 thou"? If its dimensions, a vernier gauge is your best bet rather than any kind of ruler. Even an inexpensive vernier of the non-electric type using a sliding scale can be very accurate.
If its squareness or some other angle-checking that's critical, most engineering tools, even the inexpensive ones, are more than accurate enough for woodwork - more so than many of the traditional woodworking squares, combination or otherwise.
Wood stuff is squishable within 0.1 or even 0.2mm (depending on the wood and on its position in a piece). Metal isn't. So its likely that any metal working measuring tool is going to be accurate enough for wood - well - other than the really cheap & nasty stuff from you-know-where. :-)
Not worried about measurement AT ALL!!! - it is the squareness/45 deg angle, and how well does the the head lock down on the cheaper squares
For other angles, I'll break out the starrett, and the protractor head
Basically, I have all the measuring tools I need, just wondering if I'll be disappointed in a cheap set for the garage
And yeah, I've seen the cheap nasty stuff, it is well, cheap and nasty.
I have a Starret, a couple of Woodpeckers and an iGaging combo square(s) in various sizes. If I want perfectly square, I will used a fixed square. For the type of work I use a combination square for, the iGaging is pretty nice. I also own a very nice caliper by them that works beautifully.
If I had the money to spend, I would get a Starret, but the others are quite nice. I think the iGaging is a big step up from most of the hardware store combo squares. It has a nice low sheen/matte finish and is easy to read.
Lordy, I don't have both a machine shop and a wood shop but I have filed an old try square back to square in about ten minutes' time. Perfectly fine for woodworking. Not so much for rockets going to the moon.
Maybe deploy some of your machinist's skills...???
A reminder of what was possible in the 1700s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bhu7HjIGAk
I'm of the same mind.
Far too many think, feel, assume that their measurements need to be "perfect". Wood is a natural medium and is not, nor ever will be perfect. There are times when precise measurements are more critical than others but for the frustrated machinists and retired engineers, I say relax a bit.
IMHO, the further to the right of the decimal point you think you need to be, the further away from understand wood you get.
Thanks for that YT link. i watched all 4 parts. Incredible. my jaw was on the floor the whole time...
We all have our own appetite for quality verses cost.
KG2V - It appears you would be disappointed with the purchase of an economical tool.
I have made the decision to buy economical tools and have been disappointed. The more economical the tool the more disappointment.
If you hafta ask the question you prolly already know the answer. Your third should be as good as your other two -- it'll save you the trip down when you become frustrated with the 'not as good'.
Are you a collector or a user?, hate to think how many pencils and pens you’ve got, I have to agree with the comment about different tools having different tolerances, if you use the same measuring tool all the time all the project parts will be the same, to echo one of the above comments, “it ain’t rocket surgery “
Do you also get blades off of Starrett? If yes, is it good enough?
A friend of mine once told me that he always "leaves" a little mistake in everyone of his projects, just so he stays humble. I usually don't have to add a mistake, they just happen. But I'm the only one who knows where it is and I'm fine with it.
None of my errors are due to the tools. Misuse of the tools maybe, but nothing to do with the gear itself.
I have a whole bunch of no-name measuring and marking tools that I variously found second hand or inherited from non-woodworking relatives who just happened to buy them in the past for DIY.
I do know which feel best and are easiest to adjust, but they are all more than sufficiently accurate for woodwork.
I think every tool purchase should involve a calculation of not what is "the best", but what is the best value for me in how much Im going to use it. I cant justify anything Festool for example, because my hobbyist output is too low. I have two Starrett combo squares, only because I got the cheap at estate sales. Otherwise my old Empire was good enough for what I was doing.
Interesting conversation. I wonder what I am doing wrong by using a 45/90 plastic drafting to set up my TS blade after I doing a bevel cut. Seems to be OK when I check it with a 0.0015" feeler gauge. The combo squares with cosmetic defects I bought from Harvey Epstein for $25 seem fine, square and depth setting is reproducible when I am making saddle joints. When I cut dovetails on the TS (sorry hand tool folks) using the 8 degree shop shim to set the miter and blade angle seem to give good joints with a bit of chisel work. My $90 HF mortise machine with their x/y vice and a bit of adjustment makes mortices. Who knew???
The small maple table I built last winter in the shop does have issues. It was 25.000" +/- 0.0001" wide when it was made, then was 24.087" in the house, now is 25.095" on a humid day. Should I scrap it??
All the obsession with accuracy is lost on me. Accuracy vs precision. Do I care if a tenon is 1/4" long or 0.248"? Nope, just does give me a good joint, tight shoulder in the assembly. I am interested in making things and frequently have to use 'in process engineering changes' when things do not go to plan. Nobody will ever notice the reason for them.
Other than for posts that are obvious parody, when some poor soul comes on a woodworking forum and starts quoting measurements to thousandths, you just know they'll be miserable the rest of their 'woodworking' lives. It takes a willful ignorance of the history of the craft to think that taking measurements at that level of accuracy, with the instruments required to do so, is necessary to produce gorgeous furniture.
Elementary geometry and a sharp pencil/knife/scribe get you more than close enough. Quit shopping for machinist's instruments and spend 15 bucks on a used 10th grade geometry textbook and a decent marking awl. Learn to use both.
I briefly (thank God) went through the dial-gauge-on-tablesaw-blade syndrome. If I were running a production shop where parts from several departments needed to meet up for assembly and essentially be fungible, then it might have made sense. For the sole practitioner in control of every aspect of the project, it makes none. Free yourself.
It’s usually a safe bet to pay attention to a person who can smoothly slip the word “fungible” into a comment.
I have a small collection of squares, some purchased used (Starrett, B&S) some new. Unless you buy the top-of-the line (Starrett) brand-new, you need to be able to verify squareness out of the gate (easy really). I would probably check even a new Starrett.
Mid-price tools will likely need some work. I purchased a 6" combo square made by Empire and found it perfectly square but very stiff. I polished the beam with fine steel wool, honed the edges on a surface plate and rubbed it down with wax. After 15 minutes added attention it is now one of my favorite tools.
I own a lot of stuff from "Insize" and I think they're right up there with Starret at a fair price.
I think accuracy is one of those things that is situational. When I'm re-installing planer knives, I use a dial indicator and try to get within a half a thousandth. Same with putting in shaper knives in a lock-edge set of collars. If I want two pieces the same size, I don't measure them independently. I plane them in the same spot in the planer, joint one edge, rip them with the same fence setting without moving it, square one end, and use a stop block (set with my 12' x 1/2" pocket tape measure) to cut them to length. Unless your table saw blade has lost its tensioning and cuts variable width kerf depending on the hardness of the spot in the wood, they will be the same size (and of course, keep the dust away from the end stop.)
In making a mortise and tenon joint, even a few thousandths of an inch can change the joint from just the right friction to sloppy clattery no good. Before I got my single end tenoner (and still in special situations) I used a pair of matched table saw blades with circular disks as spacers between them so that I could cut the tenon with one cut. That way, once the shims were right, I could guarantee that each tenon was the same thickness. Using two separate cuts (or dado blades gauged from opposite sides of the board) leaves you open to inconsistencies.
My primary shop square is a 6" Stanley that I bought in a hardware store almost 50 years ago. I checked several hanging there and found some that agreed and produced a straight line along the handles when the blades were abutted. I do have a 4" machinists square that I use to check squares every decade or so, if I think it's needed. I have accumulated an excess of 12" combination squares over the years, so recently checked them out. The cheap ones with plastic locking knobs were less likely to be accurate. The Starrett and B&S were very accurate. If you have a good square and want to buy a cheap one, take the good one along to check it. And be ready to be happy with mediocre finish quality.
It was not my intent to hijack this thread onto methods of work; just to illustrate that different situations required different levels of accuracy, and sometimes not measuring is the most accurate way.
I've stuck with Starrett since my metalworking days 40+years ago. The reason is the combo square: the square, the protractor and the center finder. I don't use the center finder much anymore, but the protractor is quite handy. When you're scribing an angle, you often need it to be quite precise.
I have an off-brand 6" dial caliper that I got at Rockler years ago and it has worked fine for a long time. As with some above, the charm of the Starretts is as much their reliable squareness (or 45 deg-ness) as the measurement scale. Over the years they've been dropped more than I want to admit, and never suffered. I did break the brass screw that tightens the scale once somehow and Starrett just sent me one for free.
My “gold standard” reference square, an 8” stainless steel machinists square inherited from my father in law’s days/years as an engineer, stays in its case unless I’m checking my other squares against it. My fine woodworking go-to square is my Bridge City Tool Works 8” model. It’s perfectly square, but is adjustable in case that changes. It also looks great. I also have the 3 piece iGaging machinists square kit, 2”, 4”, 6”. All 3 together cost 1/3 less than the Bridge City square. They were all square out of the box, and still are after a few years. They’re non-adjustable. At their more affordable price I don’t baby them as much as the Bridge City tools, I still treat them with respect though!
If an old tool works best use that.
I have a bunch of squares. Starrett, Lufkin, Stanley, Empire, and some unbranded Engineers squares. The Empire brand is available at the Borg and is as accurate as any of them. They’re inexpensive ($15 for a 12” version), have a machined aluminum head and have SS rules. Just remember that this is woodworking, not aerospace.
After creating every part to very high tolerances we then sand it, assemble, sand it more, and finish it. hmmm. Did it assemble well? Does it meet the eye of the end user? We all have our personal tolerances for craftsmanship, pride and excellence. You gotta do what you gotta do to be happy with the results. My friend doesn't feel "right" when he holds an Empire combo square but gleams with pride when he holds a Starrett in his hands. While the end results of the projects are the same he just "feels" better when he used his Starrett for building projects. You gotta do what works for you without having that "voice" tell you "this ain't right". Good luck.
I guess I would answer a question with a question. If you have two that you are quite happy with, do you use both at the same time? Why not move one to your woodshop?
Ding!