Squares
Two squares for €22 — and a test you should run on both before trusting either.
Two squares for €22 — and a test you should run on both before trusting either.
Best for: Marking and checking square on furniture-scale work
Every figure below is a manufacturer specification read off the listing itself. The judgments are ours.
Two try squares, 180 mm (7.09 in) and 300 mm (11.8 in).
No tolerance is stated on this listing, and no tolerance stated on any listing should be trusted without checking. The flip test above takes ten seconds and gives you the real number for the square in your hand, rather than the number printed for the batch.
A square that fails it is not useless — it is a marking gauge. Just do not use it to check anything.
Put the stock against a known straight edge and mark a line along the blade. Flip the square over, register from the same point, and mark again. If the two lines diverge, the error is half the gap between them. Ten seconds, and it disqualifies a surprising number of squares sold as precision instruments.
The 180 mm (7.09 in) is the one you actually pick up — for joints, small parts and checking a fence. The 300 mm (11.8 in) is for carcases and panels, where a short square cannot tell you whether the whole assembly is square, only whether one corner is.
Three instruments that read no number at all — they carry a distance from the work to the rule.
Best for: Turning a bowl to a wall thickness, or stepping a repeated division round a circle
Ten pieces, a storage box, and a sharpening tool in a measuring kit — and not one item identified.
Best for: A gift for somebody setting up a bench, where the contents will be discovered on opening
A wheel severs the fibers where a pin tears them — which is the complaint the published gauge on this shelf already carries.
Best for: Tenon shoulders, mortice walls and dovetail baselines, marked once and cut to
The thinnest kerf on this shelf at 1.8 mm (0.07 in), on the smallest blade — with two reducer bushings in the packet.
Best for: A 4-1/2 inch mini circular saw, cutting sheet goods and moldings
Eighteen thousandths of an inch — the thinnest band here, which needs less tension and takes a tighter curve than anything else at this length.
Best for: A 14 inch saw with a light frame, where a thin band tensions properly and turns tighter
Twelve euros, and the only practical way to clamp a mitred frame, a hexagon or anything else with no parallel faces.
Best for: Mitred picture frames, and any glue-up with no parallel faces to clamp against
Prices quoted in these summaries are dated readings. The live price is shown next to each product.