Beginners tools: Marking and Measuring

Marking and measuring are two very important aspects in woodworking and you should be looking for very good quality tools.  Not so long ago, two of my squares have been verified and scrapped because they were not perfectly square.

There is so many types of rulers, squares, marking gauges, knifes, etc that the choice is not so easy.
Let's see the tools that I own and how I use them.

Squares:

The protractor on the left is useful for angles that are not 45 or 90° but there are not that many of those angles.  It's a fairly expensive square and it should be last on your purchasing list.  In the meantime you could purchase a much cheaper angle finder (next picture).  With it I can check a sharpening angle or any angle on a piece of furniture.


The small machinist square is very useful. I like to use it for checking if the edges are really square.  I drop the thick part on the edge of a board and check the squareness of the board on the side.

I also use that one for marking small pieces and to check an assembly for squareness.

The traditional square is not expensive but mine was not perfectly square. I sanded and filed down one side of the ruler to adjust for squareness. For those who have the budget, you can buy the same kind of square made of ductile iron. These squares are high precision and "high" prices like Starrett or Mitutoyo.

With this inexpensive traditional square I pencil mark or knife mark (making a knife wall) most of my measures.


Don't forget that you will also need those funny adjustable squares that most people have forgotten the use.


Those are called false square, bevel gauge or sliding T bevel.  They are inexpensive and useful in your shop.  I use them to lay out dovetails or any other angle that I can't do with a regular square.

Marking tools:

Following the indispensable pencil there is a scribe. It works well when you have a rough cut (no precision here) perpendicular to the grain to achieve. The two knives are used for the same job. They are used to mark with precision the exact lenght that I have to cut or plane. I am not using the Veritas knife anymore because I had to spend too much time sharpening. A replaceable blade knife is much less work, just as accurate (I use it for dovetails) and definitely cheaper.

Rulers:

The 6" ruler is used for the "Ruler trick" from D. Charlesworth.   This is a sharpening method by which you can create a micro-bevel on the back of a blade.  You can see his method here.
The 12" ruler is hardly used at all.
The 24" ruler is being used all the time when I want to get something straight, like planing an edge.  It's a very rigid steel ruler.
The 36" ruler is used to check wind or twist when I have a very large surface like below.


I own another ruler but it's just for the fun of having one of those old tool.  A Lufkin 2062 made of boxwodd.

Marking gauges:

The upper one is used mostly to mark the width of a board that I want to resaw.
The other two are very good when your marking needs to be against the grain.  They are the gauges used for tenon/mortise and dovetails.  I have two of them because it's just more convenient.  One is set for a measure that you will use often in a project while the second takes care of all other marking.

Other instruments:

Once in a while I use a filler gauge when I restore a plane and want to verify if the frog is properly seated in the sole.[/caption]

A dovetail marker from Veritas.  You can make one or used a bevel gauge.  It's not really necessary.
A micrometer for measuring shaving thickness when I do a study about sharpening.

I also have that next tool and I use it for checking the depth of a mortise.  Every time that I'm chopping a mortise I have that little guy with me.  No idea what it's name is...


Normand