#145. All about woodworking squares

So...

One of the next squares I actually got, and I think it was just more because I've seen it kicking around on Instagram and YouTube, and it was kind of, for me, it kind of comes across as a more American thing, and that's a speed square.

And I do actually use my speed square quite a lot, especially... especially when there's white boards to mark out or I'm drawing mark out lines on, I don't know, like plywood or MDF, something like that.

And I find it's very, very handy.

This is highly recommended if you're not in the States and you're in England, I would really recommend you get one of these.

These are really, really good for, maybe for people that are kind of, you know, like a hobbyist just like myself and use, you know, is more used to using like combination squares and other types like tri-squares, whatever.

These are not to be, you know, these are not to be shunned upon.

These are really good.

So for me, how I tend to use these use this one um obviously i tend to use it as as a square of that's you know that's the obvious thing but any sort of angle that i need to find this is my go to now i think i may own an angle an angle finder somewhere where i do not know i do not look for it i do not i do not go to grab it this is the thing so again for those of you that do not know you have the simple pivot and with that simple pivot you have all the markings on one side and you can pivot and you can find exactly what angle you need to find and that's how I'm finding all my angles even to the point I'm making a chair let's say I want to make a chair and one of the angles where I'm drilling it's going to be like 15 degrees for instance let's just say so what I would do I would tilt it get the 15 degrees and i would mark and add 15 degrees i would then get my sliding bevel and the mark i've just made will give me me 15 degrees which then i can use to set on the sliding bevel to you know to eye in how i'm drilling basically to to give us all me you know my angles when i'm drilling and i've been doing that for some time now it works really well these are reliable this is the metal one I'm not sure what type of alloy this is I don't know if it's just like aluminium or something but the thing I like about this is that it's it's a metal and just because of the structure of it a triangle it's going to be difficult to knock it out of square unless you're like purposefully abusing this thing these are you know this is going to be really really tough and that's one of the things i like about it obviously you have got your 45 degree and There's all kind of marketing on these.

I'm not going to pretend, I know, because I haven't used this per se on any roof builds I've done.

I mean, for me, I'm not a joiner who would do like roofing.

I've done this type of roofing.

I've also done on my main house on the first level, shall we say, a sloping roof.

But there was nothing complicated about that.

And, you know, you've got all your hip rafters and whatever else on this.

And I'm not going to pretend like I know because that's above my pay grade, should we say.

But there is some good videos on it.

And this little square, you know, it has a lot of information on it.

You know, if you're doing this day in and day out, and I have watched some of the American guys, you know, use these in America.

And it's really good how they use them.

One of the things I haven't used on this is the plumb bob so again for those that do not know you can actually wrap a little bit of string around it and it has got a little bit of a pivot point just at the end here which I understand why you'd say it but it does annoy you sometimes simply because when I'm using this as a square and if you're going right next to the edge your pencil tip will go in the indentation there so I don't like that but that's by the by.

so again you wrap your string around there and you'll get you'll get a piece of string with a weight on the bottom and depending on kind of the angle of whatever you're measuring whether that be a shelf or or maybe you know whatever it may be this will this will give you the angle that it's it's up simply because the the plumb bob the the string and the weights gravity's pulling it kind of to its own centre, the same way a spirit level works in a way and obviously this will give you the angle, you can also pull lines with it although I don't tend to pull lines with this but you can do it and I've seen people do it, I typically don't use it if I'm honest if I'm going to pull lines I do pull lines with combination square usually or if i'm doing a lot of them i will go and use a pencil gauge or maybe a panel a panel gauge that's what i tend to do when i was building this shed work shed workshop whatever you want to call it I did actually go out specifically and I got myself one of these now for the life of us I cannot remember the name of it so this is basically like an L shape and it's a Japanese type of Morton gauge and the reason I bought this is because I can actually wrap it around You know, things like a 2x3 or a 3x2, a 4x2, things like that.

Although it won't reach over a 4x2.

But, you know, the things like a 3x2, it does, you know, quite nicely.

And since I used 3x2s on all of the walls...