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Measuring and marking skills are
fundamental to good woodworking practice. In the age of machinery and
power tools, these skills are becoming a little less practiced in some
instances. The fact is, you can now rely on the myriad of inbuilt fence
scales, height measuring devices and digital calipers to get your
measurements very accurate. When you need to transfer measurements to
other faces of a piece of wood (particularly important when layout out for
mortises or tenons) you invariably need to rely on a square or other
measure transfer device to maintain that accuracy.
We are going to take a quick look at
the Veritas Saddle Square, because quite simply, it is a simple tool!
Veritas Saddle Square
The Veritas Saddle square is primarily designed to allow you to
transfer marks from one surface to another perpendicular surface on a
workpiece. The saddle square itself is made from anodized aluminum, a
material used in many other Veritas jigs and devices, some of which you
can find reviews of elsewhere on this site. The square itself is rigid and
strong.
It measures 2" wide and is milled at a
right angle that is machined square (to within 1/4 of a degree according
to the manufacturer). One leg measures 1 1/4" while the other measures 2
1/4", so its not a 'big' tool in anyone's books. It is quite compact and
would easily fit into your pocket, or into a pocket of a shop apron for
easy access.
The square is milled very smoothly,
however, on each leg you will find several raised ridges running across
each leg which go a long way to helping you grip the square and prevent it
slipping in your fingers. The image pictured above does in fact show a
small hole milled in the wider leg. The saddle square I received did not,
but that's no problem. Storing this square will not cause a coronary!
I find I use the square primarily for
marking out mortise and tenons, but it could be used for any application
where a 'square' transfer of lines is required. I have also found it
useful for laying out marks for dowels on right angle joints before
attaching the doweling jig, marking out perpendicular reference/stop lines
for hinge rebates so I can see then clearly when machining, and if you
ever need to measure or mark exactly 2" from the end of a piece of wood or
existing mark, it can do that easily too. Another advantage of a saddle
square over a regular square is that you can mark two perpendicular
surfaces at one time without moving the square.
A good test of the product's accuracy
is to take a square piece of lumber and make perpendicular markings around
each side until they meet up at the starting point. An inaccurate square
will mean the markings will not line up once they make a full revolution
around the 4 faces (well 2 faces and 2 sides). An accurate square will
have start and end points meeting exactly at the same position. So I took
a piece of square lumber and administered the test. The result... an
accurate saddle square.
There is not really much more to say.
The pictures basically tell the story of how this item is used, and if you
do a lot of marking by hand, whether you machine cut or hand cut your
materials, a good saddle square will save time and delivery more accurate
joints. The Veritas Saddle Square retails for US$10.95 and is available
from Lee Valley -
www.leevalley.com (Item Code is 05N5601)
In Australia, order from
Timbecon
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