DRAXZOR 3-piece rule set with stops, 6, 8, 12 in

Every figure below names its source. Each one is a manufacturer specification read off the listing itself. The judgments are ours.

A stop on every rule

Which makes these something other than rules.

Measuring 42 mm (1.65 in) twenty times means reading the scale twenty times and being wrong once. Setting a stop at 42 mm (1.65 in) means butting it against the edge twenty times and getting the same answer.

That is exactly the argument the published Stubai double gauge on this shelf makes for its two beams: two dimensions stay set through a whole batch of joints.

A rule with a stop is the cheap version, and it works on any face the rule can lie on.

Three lengths, three stops

Six, eight and twelve inches — so the stop is available at whatever scale the work is.

A six-inch rule with a stop sets a router bit height. A twelve-inch one sets a fence offset across a carcase side. The same stop on one rule would do neither well.

Anodized aluminum

Light, and it will not rust in an unheated shop.

It is also soft. A marking knife run along an aluminum edge nicks it, and a nicked edge marks a wavering line from then on.

The Mr. Pen rules on this shelf are stainless, which is the opposite trade. For measuring, aluminum is fine. For a knife fence, steel.

And a stop that clamps on an anodized face will eventually wear through the anodizing, which is where aluminum starts to corrode.

And two figures the other set publishes

Where the scale starts, and how thick the rule is.

Both are on the Mr. Pen listing here and neither is on this one. The first decides whether the rule can measure from an edge; the second whether it lies flat.

What this set has instead is three locking stops. They are complementary tools rather than competing ones: one set measures, the other repeats.

Availability

Read on the day this page was built: $13 at the American Amazon shop.

Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.