I've been purging my shop and tool chests of excess tools this week. But now I'm afraid some of my tools are "taking the hint" and leaving on their own.

This morning I set out to dovetail a walnut carcase and found that one of my beloved dividers – an old Brown & Sharpe – was AWOL. So I had to use some bigger, clunkier dividers in tandem with my Starrett (shown above) to lay things out.

I sawed out all the waste and reached for my drop-point knife to clean out the snot from the corners. No knife. Where the cuss is my knife?

I suspect that I've been traveling too much with my tools and these small items have been lost in the shuffle. The funny thing is that I need these little guys more than I need a table saw. They are steely psychological crutches.

Lucky for me, the Mid-west Tool Collectors Association is having meet down in Louisville this fall. So I should be able to make some new friends at the tool swap.

— Christopher Schwarz

Be a Joiner

• Someone had to hold a gun to my head to make me join French Club in high school. I never liked "groups" of "people." But I have gotten over it. You should, too. If you aren't a member of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association you should remedy that right now. The first tool sale you go to will make you into a lifetime devotee. mwtca.org

• And while you have that wallet open, join the Early American Industries Association. Even if you don't go to the meetings, you'll stay a member if only to receive their quarterly, The Chronicle. eaiainfo.org

David Brookshaw has been making amazing tools since 1988 -- many of them miniatures that have appeared in some of the gorgeous tool books from Sandor Nagyszalanczy, including the cover of "Tools: Rare and Ingenious."

This November, Brookshaw is coming to Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Miniaturia show Nov. 6-7, where he'll be showing his miniature tool chest and workshop that we featured on the blog earlier (read about it here and here).

Lately Brookshaw has been making some pieces from the incredible Nessi collection of tools, including the ones below. These were featured in this book, which I bought in 2004 for $80. Ouch. But the essays and photos are well worth it for the ardent tool nutjob.

Brookshaw makes his pieces for sale. The dividers above, which are from the French book "Le Livre de l'outil." They were a commission that cost $3,000. So now I am reconsidering my decision to skip law school.

Check out the dividers below from the Nessi collection, and stop by the show in Philadelphia if you want to see more. You can contact Brookshaw through his web site.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Tool Makers and Books You Should Investigate

• "Classic Hand Tools" by Garrett Hack

• "The Art of Fine Tools" by Sandor Nagyszalanczy

• Heinz Tools: heinztools.com, where I got my squirrel hammer!

• Gerd Fritsche's Traditional Handplanes: traditional-handplanes.com

I'm packing up all the tools I'll need in North Carolina for the coming week, and I was a bit shocked this morning as I went through my checklist.

One of the "Woodwright's Shop" television programs Roy Underhill and I are shooting this weekend will deal with the typical toolkit of a joiner circa 1839. I compiled my list based on an old book, "The Joiner & Cabinet Maker," which detailed the fictional life of a young apprentice.

During the book, the apprentice builds three projects – a packing box, a dovetailed schoolbox and a full-scale chest of drawers. Last year I built all three of these projects using only hand tools (the school box was featured in the Autumn 2009 issue of Woodworking Magazine).

Today I made up a list of the 41 tools mentioned in the construction of the three projects in the book. This includes everything from pencils to chalk and plow planes to bowsaws. What was surprising was how few tools there were. I fit them all easily on my 20"-wide x 6'-long workbench. To be sure, there would be several tools that I would have liked to have had in that toolkit, such as a sliding bevel square, but they are all tools of convenience instead of necessity.

Here's the list (and yes, I know that some people think a dozen chisels are not one item. I do. Just ask my wife. If I have 100 cans of tomato soup I'll go through the express lane at the grocery store and say: It's one item. So there).

2' rule
Try square
Chalk
Chalk line
Handsaw
Ripsaw
Bench brush
Two sawbenches
Pencil
Striking knife (a joiner's marker)
Jack plane
Trying plane
Smoothing plane
Rubstone
Wooden straightedge
Marking gauge
Panel gauge
Brad awl
Hammer
Piece of iron or steel for clenching/straightening nails
Nail set
Broad chisel, dullish (for scraping glue)
Sash saw
Shooting board
Bench hook
Dovetail saw
Chisels (a dozen, 1/16" up to 1"; then two or three wider than that)
Rattail file
Turnscrews
Brace
Countersink
Rasp
File
Sandpaper
Mallet
Name stamp
Rebate plane
Plow plane
Mortise chisel
Mortise gauge
Frame saw (bowsaw)

— Christopher Schwarz

Want More on Early Tools and Technology?

• Visit Gary Roberts's excellent Toolemera.com. No, I'm not sure how to pronounce it, either. It combines "tool" with "ephemera." In any case, Gary's site is chock full of catalogs and early books that you can download or order.

• Jeff Gorman's web site is back up! Neanderthals rejoice. www.amgron.clara.net. There is lots of good stuff there on traditional technique from a British perspective.

• The Evenfall Woodworks Library is another free repository of great old books. Stop in when you have some bandwidth you want to suck up with some great downloads.

Some days I forget that not all woodworking tools are designed by woodworkers (see: many of the honing guides on the market).

And I forget that some tools are just designed to trick your family members into buying them for you at Christmas (see also: the battery-operated tape measure and C-clamp).

This weekend as I was cleaning up the shop a bit, I started thinking about many of the odd, unnecessary or downright counterproductive features on tools and machinery. Here's my short list. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments below. Remember, this is about features, not about particular brands.

1. Slick Miter Saw Tables. Every miter saw that has come into our shop has had a polished and slick table (usually aluminum). I hate this feature, and it is one of the reasons these saws aren't as accurate as they could be. The slick table makes your work slide around unless it is secured by a stop or a clamp. The result is that your cut is not at the desired angle. Add some sticky-back sandpaper to the fence of your saw and you'll be impressed by how much more accurate you are.

2. Jointer Fences that Bevel. Every jointer fence pivots. And every jointer fence (except one – ours. We set ours at a permanent 90° with lock-nuts) tends to loosen up in time and go out of square. In all my years of woodworking, I've never wanted to pivot my jointer fence. I've always had a better way to put a bevel on a board. But I am constantly frustrated by having to re-square my jointer fence to the table. For the five people who make bevels on their jointers, manufacturers can offer an accessory fence that bevels.

Oh, and the same goes for the rabbeting ledge on the jointer. The only reason I've used it is to see how it works.

3. Wacky Ruler Markings. I have two beefs here. The first one is about rulers that are marked in tenths of an inch and are sold to furniture makers. The only thing I need tenths of an inch for is measuring rainfall. These rulers have caused so many errors that I've banished them from my shop. Beef two: When the graduations on the ruler are all the same length (or nearly the same length). The marks for 1/4", 1/2" and 3/4" should be the longest. Then the eighths should be shorter. And the sixteenths even shorter than that. I have a 24" rule that makes me crazy because of this.

4. All-metal Hammers. Have you ever used one of these for more than a couple nails? Has your arm recovered yet?

5. Chisels With Bucky Sides. If you make a bevel-edge chisel, make it so the bevels actually do something. The bevels are supposed to allow you to get into acute angles, especially in dovetails. If they don't do that, then they are as useless as mammaries on a tomcat.

6. Collet Locks on Routers. I know I'm going to take heat for this one because every manufacturer tells me that the consumers love collet locks. I find them awkward and fragile (I've busted at least four). Please let me tighten my collets with two well-fitted wrenches in peace.

7. Plastic Tool Cases. Space is at a premium in my shop at home. These hard plastic cases take up way too much space, and it's always difficult to get the tool and the accessories into it. When I get one, I give it to the kids to mess with. I actually do like the soft tool bags that some manufacturers use. Those get filled with all sorts of things when I need to install a cabinet or my kids have a sleepover.

8. A Junky Stock Blade. Not everyone does this, but some makers of table saws, miter saws, jigsaws and circular saws ship the tool with a blade that is, at best, suited for cutting goat cheese. I hate throwing away a blade and having to buy a decent one. Either put a good blade on the tool (and charge me more) or ship the tool without a blade (and charge me less).

9. Router Table Fences that Offset for Jointing. Do you know how hard it is to joint an edge on a router table on a board that is 6' long? Setting it up to do that operation is silly if you have a jointer or a jointer plane.

10. Unnecessary Lasers. On a jigsaw? Really?

— Christopher Schwarz

Tool Resources that Will Help You Make Good Decisions

• "Bill Hylton's Ultimate Guide to the Router Table" by Bill Hylton.

• "Handplane Essentials" by Christopher Schwarz.

• "Cutting-Edge Router Tips & Tricks" by Jim Stack – note what routers he uses....

• "Working With Power Tools" by Paul Anthony.

Expanded and detailed plans for the Roubo Try Square from the February 2010 issue are now for sale as a download in our store.

The plans include the original two-page article published in the February 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking, plus another six pages of detailed step-by-step instructions on the construction and truing process. There's also a page of the three critical full-size details (the moulding shapes on the ends and the profile of the stock). And a detailed SketchUp file. The price is $4.99.

If you have the February issue and are an intermediate woodworker, you have everything you need to build the try square, which I scaled directly off Andre Roubo's plates with the assistance of a translation of the 18th-century text.

However, every time we publish a project, our customers ask if there are plans with more details available for purchase. We decided to use this project as an experiment. So I took an extra two days to completely flesh out the construction and truing process in minute detail. Art Director Linda Watts took a day to design the package like a story in the magazine.

To read more about the plans, visit our store.

— Christopher Schwarz

The longer I'm a woodworker, the less I like systems of measurement. Whether you're a machinist who works in metric, an imperious advocate of imperial, or a Bob who measures in "bobs," there is one thing that is true about all these systems: They invite error.

When you add, subtract, multiply or divide these measurements, you are doomed to make a mistake. We transpose numbers. We "burn an inch" when we use a tape measure by reading on the wrong side of the line. And we simply back ourselves into a difficult corner when we need to divide the face of a board into five equal spaces with 1/8" between each space.

The solution, for me, is to reject measuring systems and rely instead on two things:

1. Direct readings. (Put the door stile up to the door opening. Mark the length of the stile. Make the cut.)

2. A lot of dividers.

This Christmas I didn't get any woodworking tools from my spouse or kids. Usually they try to get me a small tool to make my life a little easier (last year was a couple screwdrivers and a Japanese-tooth keyhole saw). But I was delighted when I opened a box from my mom and it was filled with four pairs of rusty old dividers.

My mom has a booth at an antique mall in New Mexico and she sometimes picks up some cool stuff there. She got these dividers for me to hang on the wall, but they are simply too cool for the shelf. There are lots of different kinds of dividers available, and if you troll eBay for a few minutes you can find a lifetime supply for little money. Here are three vintage types that I like.

Forged dividers. These are blacksmith-made and show up in 18th-century tool catalogs. I don't know if mine (shown above) are that old, but I do feel like wearing a powdered wig when I pick them up. In essence these dividers are made by taking one long bar of iron and flattening it out the middle. Then the smith curves the two ends over until they touch. The flattened part in the middle is thin and springy, which tends to open the points. A threaded rod and wingnut through the middle of the dividers makes them hold their setting. Mine are signed by W.H. Wilson, who I suspect was the owner. These have an organic shape, almost like they are skeletal. If you see some, snatch them up.

Riveted dividers. I don't see this form as much. It is basically two bars of iron that have been hinged together and riveted. A tight fit and friction makes the tool hold its setting. When I got these out of the box they were rusted shut. A little Liquid Wrench and elbow grease loosened them up. Now they work like new.

Wing dividers. This is a common form and quite clever. For big measurements you simply loosen the nut and one leg swings free. For small measurements there is a spring between the legs. When you lock in a small setting you can micro-adjust your final setting by turning the screw on the side of the dividers. It's super cool early technology.

For most woodworking, I use dividers that have legs that are between 4" and 6" long. Bigger dividers are pretty unwieldy, though I do use them for laying out cubbyholes and the like.

I think you are going to be hearing a lot more about these tools in the future. George Walker uses them a lot (check out his blog on design). And one of the most-requested classes at Woodworking in America was how to use dividers to lay out your work.

So thanks for the dividers, mom. It's just like the time you bought me a case of beer for my 21st birthday.

— Christopher Schwarz

Several readers have encouraged me to take a look at the OXO 16" folding ruler, which is an inexpensive aluminum recreation of the classic 19th-century folding ruler.

I picked one up at Staples for $6.99 and have been fiddling with it to determine if it's the second coming or just a second-string tool for the shop.

If you're not familiar with the OXO brand, it's a company that specializes in household tools for the kitchen, garden, bath and office that generally feel soft and pleasant to grip. As an enthusiastic cook, I swear by the OXO vegetable peeler, but I detest the company's kitchen shears, which don't seem to cut much of anything as near as I can tell.

The folding ruler is an interesting piece of work. In some ways, it's a faithful interpretation of the folding ruler that every woodworker once used. The two arms of the ruler swivel on a round hinge; when closed, the arms are held in alignment by a small steel pin. So far, so sweet.

Also good: When you open up the ruler, its hinge tightens up, nearly locking the two arms in the open position. The ruler is substantially straight (don't go checking handplane soles with it, however), and draws a nice straight line when open.

More cleverness: The round hinge is marked in 15° increments from 0° to 180°. I wouldn't set my table saw with the tool, but it could work like a bevel gauge in a pinch. And I also like the fact that there is a hole bored through the hinge, which makes it easy to hang the tool on a nail.

The markings are accurate and fairly crisp, but be aware that it's no Starrett. One face is marked in imperial (16ths, with 1/32s in the first inch), and marked in metric on the other.

I do have some misgivings about the tool for the shop, however. The markings aren't etched on the aluminum. They're merely printed on and are easy to scratch away (yes, I tried). Also, the profile of the ruler isn't ideal for marking your work. The ruler tapers in thickness on the edge marked with its scale. If you want to actually mark your work with this ruler, you have to rock the ruler forward. Awkward. Speaking of marking, use a pencil when you mark with this tool. The aluminum is easy to slice with a marking knife.

And finally, while I love the hole through the circular hinge, I wonder how long it will hold tight. Loose hinges are a real problem with traditional folding rulers. However, with an old-school ruler, the fix is simple: You just peen the rivet that connects the rulers arms. If the OXO's hinge gets loose, I'm not sure there is a way to fix it.

Truth is, I know I'm asking a lot of this tool. It was built for the office, not the workshop. And it's $6.99. If you pick one up at Staples the next time you're buying paperclips, remember the Clint Eastwood line: "A man's got to know his limitations."

— Christopher Schwarz

From the "I need three hands" file: Sometimes when you scribe a line on a board with the guidance of a try square you need one hand to hold the knife, one hand to press the blade down against the work and a third hand to hold the square's handle up and against the edge of the board.

When we cleaned up the shop last week, I stumbled on some somewhat crappy parts left over from building a batch of Andre Roubo's try squares. The parts had a few pin knots, some tear-out and some spelching – but they were otherwise stable and true.

So I used those discarded components to build a square yesterday with a feature I've always wanted to try: A small dowel that moves in and out of the handle. This 1/4" dowel matches the thickness of the square's 1/4"-thick blade and moves back and forth through the handle with thumb pressure.

When the dowel protrudes out the inside edge of the handle, it rests on your work and supports the handle. This makes the square easier to manage as you work. When you need to use the square to take a reading that requires that inside edge, the dowel easily pushes to the outside edge of the handle.

I got the idea from an Incra square I owned years ago. That square had a rabbeted handle, which created a shelf that rested on your work. That was nice, but I found that the rabbet would cover my layout line. So I gave the square away to a fellow woodworker (Sorry John).

The little dowel works great, and now it looks like this square has one of those turkey buttons that pops up when the bird is done (a feature I wish Lucy had had when she was pregnant). And it's cheaper than getting a third arm grafted on my chest.

— Christopher Schwarz

Marking gauges have all manner of ways for you to lock the head to the beam, but most involve a screw or wedge mechanism. I think the coolest method I've ever seen is a cam-lock on the vintage Star Tools gauge.

The head locks on the beam by twisting the head (or beam). It locks quite well, and without things shifting around like on some cheap gauges. Both the beam and the head look to my eye to have a fairly complex shape to create this interlock.

Boy was I wrong.

This week we're polishing up a story by Jim Crammond on how to make these gauges for the February 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking. I had to draw the gauge in SketchUp using Crammond's instructions. It seemed like a wack-nutty CAD exercise, so I blocked out about four hours to complete the drawings for publication.

It took about 15 minutes.

The shapes are simple and elegant. And once you understand how they work, these gauges are a cinch to make. I can't wait to build a few.

Below is a video that shows how one works. And check out the original patent application and drawings.

— Christopher Schwarz

Ever since I saw George Walker's DVD on furniture design and his lecture at Woodworking in America, I've been trying out some of his ideas on pieces of furniture that I know and love. With a pair of dividers (and sometimes a beer) I've been walking around the drawings and thinking about shapes, proportions and punctuation.

This summer I built a simple English chest of drawers for one of my daughters that was based on an 1839 plan. I like everything about this chest (except the way one of the drawers reflects light), so I've been exploring this piece to see what else it has to teach me.

The underlying shape of the chest is a square, which is fairly common for this piece of furniture. So it was no surprise to encounter this simple shape.

First I explored the base and its relationship to the height and width of the case. The base is one-fifth of the height, and each foot is one-fifth of the length of the chest.

Looking closer at the drawer heights, the top drawers are 6" high and the bottom drawer is 9" high. That's a simple 2:3 proportion that Walker points out is used in graduating many parts, such as the width of rails in a frame-and-panel door.

I'm going to poke around this piece some more tonight. If you'd like to read more on this topic, check out some of Walker's latest entries on his blog. And wait until you see his first column in the February 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking (I got to read over the final layout today – neener, neener). I think you'll be hooked.

— Christopher Schwarz

Though I need another sliding bevel like I need a goat in my living room, I recently ordered one of the new sliding bevels from Chris Vesper Tools in Australia and have been putting it through its paces.

I reviewed Vesper's sliding bevels in the April 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking. I also wrote about Vesper for the Fine Tool Journal – you can read the article for free here. Yes, Vesper is that young. (One female editor on our staff has used the word "cherubic" – not "Cherubinic.")

If you are too lazy to click though the link above, let me boil down the story: Vesper makes the best sliding bevel I've ever used. This is both very difficult and very easy to do. It's easy to make a really good sliding bevel because almost all of them on the market suck eggs. They don't lock well. Or when they are locked, the locking mechanism won't let the tool lay flat on the work.

Do the manufacturers not actually use this tool?

Vesper's bevels use a locking mechanism based on an old patent. And it locks down better than anything else I've ever used. And the locking knob never – repeat, never – gets in your way.

So what's new about this particular bevel? There's no wooden infill. Instead, Vesper added a nice engraving on both faces of the tool. This actually reduces the cost of the tool a bit. And in my opinion, it looks as nice as the one with the infill.

These don't come cheap. The 7" bevel cost about $160 U.S. – what with the sorry state of the U.S. dollar compared to the Australian dollar. But I like Vesper's work, and was more than happy to open my wallet in the name of a bevel I don't have to worry about every time I reach for it during a project.

— Christopher Schwarz

I finished up building a set of try squares based on Andre Roubo's 18th-century plans this weekend and need to put the finish on them. What's holding me back? Well, I keep using the squares and getting pencil marks on the blades, which need to be removed before I can finish them.

I really like these try squares. Though the blade is more than 13-1/2" long, the whole square weighs only 7 ounces. Its stock is narrower than that of a traditional rosewood and brass square, and I'm surprised by how comfortable the square is to hold, carry and use.

Plus, I really like the traditional look. The cavetto in the stock and the ogee shape on the blade add a little flair to a usually rectilinear (read: boring) tool. Plus, they were a blast to make. All of the elements of construction required great care, but because the tool is so simple, it never got tedious (like when you have to dovetail an entire chest of drawers).

Those people who have a Starrett addiction are probably shaking their heads right now and fondling their dial calipers to comfort themselves. Won't these wooden squares be inaccurate? Even if you did square them to .001" along their length, they certainly wouldn't stay that way. They are, after all, made of wood.

I'm not in the least bit worried. I used well-seasoned, quartersawn stuff that I prepared with great care. The squares are quite square enough for woodworking. Besides, I have found that my accuracy isn't contained in my measuring tools. It's in my eyes, my fingers and the ultimate fit of the parts. Fussing over the minute accuracy of tools is like fussing over a smoothing plane to make it remove sub-thou shavings. It misses the point. The point is the finished product, not the tool's setup.

I documented the entire process of building these squares, and we're going to offer complete downloadable plans for the square at a nominal cost. It will include photos, text, the SketchUp drawing, full-size templates and instructions for building and truing the squares so they are as accurate as possible. We even shot a little video.

Look for it next week.

— Christopher Schwarz

Inspired by Robert W. Lang's article on making wooden try squares in the Autumn 2009 issue, I decided to make a batch of squares this weekend.

Yesterday at lunch I bought some quartersawn European steamed beech that was on sale at the local lumberyard. The clerk at the yard described it as "rustic," which must be a local Ohio term meaning "crap." I found one 12' board in the whole stack that had enough straight material suitable for making layout tools.

The price was right ($1.25 a board foot). And after a lot of handsawing and bandsawing last night I squeezed out enough beech to make seven squares and two nice bonfires.

Then the fun began.

And by fun, I mean translating 18th-century French. I spent an hour poring over "Le Menuisier En Batiment," one of Andre Roubo's volumes on the craft. He wrote specific instructions for the dimensions of a "triangle," which is what he calls a square. I translated those dimension to English and then to modern Imperical dimensions. A French inch (pouce) is equivalent to 1.066" in modern imperial. Each French inch is further divided into 12 "lines." Each line is equivalent to .088" today. The French foot is 12.44".

Then I checked Roubo's account against the try squares in Benjamin Seaton's tool chest. And surprise, Seaton's small wooden square is almost exactly the same size as Roubo's, though Roubo's is fancier.

But there was one curious detail about Seaton's three try squares. The text describing them says all three blades taper in thickness. One blade is described as tapering from 1/4" thick to 7/32". Because all three taper, I presume it was deliberate. But why?

To take some weight off the end of the blade?

To expose more end grain of the blade (sort of like in a coffin smoother or a traditional straightedge) to make the blade respond faster to seasonal changes in humidity?

Beats me. I drew up Roubo's square in SketchUp and plan to make a few of the squares with tapered blades. If Roubo mentioned tapering, I missed it.

 “The machines need the numbers. We don’t need the numbers.”
 — Jim Tolpin

After attending almost two days of lectures at our Woodworking in America conference, my head is swimming with both big ideas about the craft and the fine details of joinery.

Each of the lectures I’ve attended reminds me of a snake eating a pig. I have taken in a huge amount of information, but it is going to take me weeks or months to digest it. I hope that we’ll be able to do this construction and design conference again in a future year because this is one of the coolest things I’ve ever attended.

Now until I can get that pig past my gallbladder, let me try to give you a taste of one of the interesting themes that have been running through the seminars.

Jim Tolpin: Measure Once or Not at All
Tolpin is one of my woodworking heroes. He’s been a professional cabinetmaker all his adult life and built his career on how to make a living making furniture. His approach was machine-centric. (Heck he wrote the “Table Saw Magic” book.)

But now Tolpin is going through an interesting transition. He’s given his power equipment away to his stepson and is working with and teaching others about hand tools almost exclusively (and he’s writing a new book about it).

Tolpin’s lecture explored the different furniture design approaches that result from working with machines vs. working with hand tools. Both have advantages and disadvantages. When working with machines, Tolpin contends that furniture design becomes constrained by the machines. You’ll create details and joinery that machines can produce. You will rely more on glue. And that changes or advances to a design cost a lot of money (new tooling; new tools).

“Your stuff tends to look like other people’s stuff because you have the same machines,” Tolpin said.

The advantage with the machine approach, he said, is that you can make a living at it.

When you work with hand tools, then sketches and mock-ups drive your design. You use graphic geometry instead of calculus. Scaled drawings and cutlists are unnecessary. And you can use an analog recording system, such as a story stick.

This approach, which Tolpin calls the “artisan” approach, is best suited for home woodworkers, studio furniture makers, prototype development and museum-grade reproductions. It is very difficult to make a living making furniture this way.

After he explained the woodworking world using these terms, he designed a stepstool on the whiteboard without using any measurements. Instead, he based the components off of the human body with the goal of creating something functional, durable and beautiful. He used the measurements of his hands, shoulders and feet to create the stool (at one point he pulled his shoe off and held it up on the board).

The result was really quite nice and really did meet the requirements of a human body instead of a machine. As we got up from our seats I started thinking about trying out the concepts on a future piece of furniture. I then had to head down to our computer lab to check up on the SketchUp clinic we’re running continuously there. And I wondered if Google could add a “draw foot” tool to its menu bar.

Probably not.

Next entry: Don Williams dispels the myths of the machines in the 19th century. This one kinda made my head explode.

— Christopher Schwarz

I got to spend a little time in the Marketplace area of the Woodworking in America conference this morning and got a first look at some new hand tools that will be available soon.

First stop was with Dave Jeske at Blue Spruce Toolworks. Dave has a new line of try squares coming out this fall (they will be ready in time for our Woodworking in America Hand Tools show in Valley Forge, Pa.).

The try squares have a solid brass stock that is infilled with a very nice piece of wood. On the 12” prototype square that Dave was showing, it was infilled with Macassar ebony, though it will be available with other exotic woods as well. The blade is joined to the stock with hardened steel dowels (which are hidden under the infill).

Jeske said the try squares will be available in three different sizes. The largest one should sell for $85 to $95. He also will be making a special edition try square (which he’ll unveil at Valley Forge in October) that is based on an antique.

Jeske is also hard at work at developing torpedo levels and a bevel gauge.

I also stopped to chat with Dan and Kyle Barrett of D.L. Barrett & Sons Toolworks. They were showing off Kyle’s newest plow plane design, the No. 109 self-regulating plow. It has an ingenious screw mechanism that allows you to dial in the fence setting, keep the fence parallel to the skate and quickly lock its position.

The plane works great, and the workmanship is, as always, fantastic. The Barretts were sharing a booth with Medallion Toolworks, and I got to handle several of Ed Paik’s handsaws. All of them have the extraordinary fit and finish of the carcase saw we tested earlier this year.

Our only quibble with his saw during the review was we thought the tote was a bit thick for our hands. Ed insisted on making us a new one that we would be happy with, which he brought to the show. I know from Ed’s customers that this is how he treats all his clients.

The new saw is very comfortable. I’ll give you a full report when we return to Cincinnati and the full staff has a chance to use the saw in the shop.

I’ve got lots of other booths to visit during the next few days. I must continue to resist Slav’s booth. There is an enormous Starrett combination square there that is calling to me.

— Christopher Schwarz

In the history of measuring equipment, there is one blunder so awful that it makes me twitter (old-school twitter) like a smack-addled squirrel every time I encounter it.

It's a 6" steel rule that I acquired in 1997. The numbers are engraved and filled in. The markings are nice and fine. And there are four scales: eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds and sixty-fourths.

What's not to like?

Well, the rule doesn't start on zero. Nor does it end at 6". The rule is actually 6-3/4" long and has about 3/8" of blank steel at both the end and the beginning. To add insult to idiocy, it actually looks like the first mark starts at 1/8" because the 1/8" is actually printed under what is supposed to be zero.

Who would commit such a crime against the legacy of Pharaoh Djoser?

We would, actually. When I started work here in 1996 we owned a magazine called Woodworker, which we were closing down. As the powers that be were trying to save the struggling magazine, they came up with all manner of ideas to get more subscribers.

One of their great ideas was to give away a 6" rule as a reward for subscribing. And this is what the marketing department came up with. Is it any wonder that the magazine folded?

After Woodworker closed, we had hundreds of these rules in the warehouse and tried to pawn them off on the unsuspecting public every year when we had a warehouse sale to get rid of damaged, overstocked or returned books. In 1996 we sold the rules for $1 each. The next year, they were 50 cents. Then they were "free with purchase."

And we still had some left when we closed our warehouse years later.

Why post this grievous error? Two reasons: To let you know that even though magazine editors act like a bunch of know-it-alls, we can get whacked by the idiot stick at times. Also, as a way of making amends, to offer you your money back (50 cents) to anyone who acquired one of these rules and wants to be done with it. Drop me a line if you have one of these in your drawer.

— Christopher Schwarz

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There is precious little information out there about placing your hardware so it doesn’t look awkward. My theory: Woodworking writers get so worn out by the time that they reach the end of a story that all they do is write: Apply three coats of your favorite finish, attach the hardware and enjoy!

Oh, if only life were that simple. It’s no wonder I see so many projects with terrible finishes and hardware that looks like it was stuck on by drunk chipmunk.

Yes, there are guidelines to placing hardware. We’ve written about some of them in Woodworking Magazine, particularly about placing hinges.

But what about knobs and the common bail pulls? This week I’m adding some bail pulls to a chest that has graduated drawers and I wanted to figure out if there was some sort of system I could rely on to create the right look without just winging it.

So I looked at a bunch of pieces this morning that I liked. Most of it was Southern furniture, but that should come as no surprise to those who know my upbringing. I found three systems:

1. For tiny drawers where the pull is nearly as tall as the drawer is wide, the entire pull was centered on the drawer front. That is, the distance from the top of the pull to the top of the drawer was the same as from the bottom of the pull to the bottom of the drawer.

2. For small drawers, such as 6" wide or so, it was a little different. The mounting posts of the pulls were centered vertically on the drawer front. So if the drawer were 6" wide, the mounting posts would be exactly 3" down from the top edge of the drawer.

3. For big drawers near the bottom of a carcase, there was a third system. The mounting posts of the pulls were slightly higher than centered. How high? After looking at a lot of photos, I found that one common ratio was to divide the drawer front into nine divisions and put the mounting posts four divisions down from the top – a 4:5 ratio.

I am sure there are other schemes for placing hardware -- I'm not saying this is gospel. But it results in natural-looking hardware placement. The slightly higher pulls at the bottom of the case don’t really look all that high when you are standing in front of the chest. They look basically centered, maybe just a little high. This gives some visual weight to the bottom of the case (a good thing).

The system works, and I was really pleased with the way the hardware was spaced on the drawers. Now if I could just get the sheen consistent on all the surfaces, I’ll be ready to drink that St. Bernardus beer I’ve been saving.

— Christopher Schwarz

I'm a child of the Cold War. I remember the drills in elementary school where we curled up under our desks in the event of a nuclear attack (to kiss our butts goodbye I suppose).

One of my closest friends, Bill Tofflemeier, was obsessed with the Soviet Union and spent a lot of his earnings in junior high purchasing smuggled goods from the U.S.S.R. His room was covered in enormous propaganda posters featuring heroic drawings of Lenin.

I was so jealous.

It's taken me 27 years, but I think I've one-upped him. Thanks to a very generous reader I now own an awesome Soviet machinist square and straightedge.

The Soviets were known for overbuilding things (Tofflemeier had some really cool belts and military equipment from there), and these little measuring tools are no exception.

Both tools have beveled edges, which makes them more accurate. I use the straightedge for checking plane soles and the like. The square is great for sharpening. I can check the camber or the tip of a chisel with the square while the cutting tool is still in a honing guide.

Mostly I like the Cyrillic writing, the cool instructions indicating the tools were made in 1986 and the story (which might be fake) behind the tools.

The story goes that these tools were en route to Cuba when they were captured by an American military ship. Then they languished for years in a warehouse. When I got them, they were still in their original packaging.

I know, I know this isn't useful to you. Unless you have a friend who deals in smuggled goods….

— Christopher Schwarz

My grandfather's workbench had an adhesive rule stuck to its front edge, which was extremely useful when woodworking. You could check part dimensions without pulling out a tape measure or steel rule.

The only problem was that it was fixed to that one spot.

Now a Georgia entrepreneur has made a cool product that allows you to put a rule almost anywhere, then remove it without hurting the surface below. Called "Red Tape," it is exactly as its name implies. It's a 55'-long roll of clear adhesive tape with a continuous ruler printed on it in red.

The tape can be stuck to your workbench then removed if you please. You can stick it to the curved arm bow of a Windsor chair and use it to lay out the spacing of the spindles. Or you can even stick it to your computer monitor to pull dimensions from a photo or use it to size object in CAD or a photo-editing program.

Shown below is how I used Red Tape on my monitor to pull dimensions off a photograph of a Shaker hanging cupboard. It was very handy and easier than holding a ruler up to the screen or even working from a print-out.

The tape is marked in 1/16ths, repeats every 12" and does not stretch, as far as we could tell. The printing job was quite accurate. You can read more about the product and order it from the redtape1.com web site. It's $6.50 a roll.

— Christopher Schwarz

If you want to sell something to a woodworker, the easy way is to start by selling him on the idea that he can’t possibly do it himself. If you can accomplish that, then you have someone ready and willing to buy yet another jig to make joinery simple or publication that reveals the secrets to cutting dovetails. In truth, there isn’t much to woodworking beyond cutting stuff to a line and cleaning up surfaces you’ve cut. When I tell myself “I can’t possibly do that” a warning signal goes off, and I look for the reason why.

That alarm went off a couple months ago when we were planning the next issue of Woodworking Magazine. My assignment was to build and write about shop made layout tools, specifically wooden try squares. There was a day when this was the tool of choice, and many pieces that we consider classics today were marked for length and checked for square with two sticks. My brain was telling me I couldn’t possibly make a square of wood as accurate or reliable as my machinist’s squares, but another part of me had to ask “Why not?”

My grandfather was a tool and die maker, not a woodworker. He was proud of his skills and loved to show me his tools and how they worked. He had a cool workbench down in his basement where he kept a bottle of Scotch hidden from my grandmother. When I was five or six he asked me which I thought was thinner; a piece of paper or a hair on my head, then proceeded to show me with his micrometer. When I was nine he chewed me out for using an adjustable wrench on my bicycle when the correct size wrench was readily available. And he explained to me how the adjustable square invented by Leroy Starrett was one of the things that made modern life possible, and quite possibly the best tool ever.

Part of my reluctance to make a square from wood is my dependence on my Starrett squares. Granddad didn’t lie to me, and I think cabinetmaker’s were smart to adopt this tool from another trade. But machinist’s tools aren’t perfect, and from time to time, I’ve had to take a file to my Starretts to bring them back in line. So, I figured that if I could make two pieces of metal square to each other, the chances were pretty good that I could do the same with two pieces of wood.

As I set to work, I remembered a conversation I had with my father that changed the way I think about woodworking. He wasn’t a woodworker either, but he asked me the right question at the right time. I was trying to inlay a thin strip of holly in a piece of walnut and was struggling with getting the thickness just right. I was ready to give up, cut the walnut in two and glue the pieces back together with the holly in between. When I told my dad I thought that was a reasonable solution he asked “if you call yourself a cabinetmaker, shouldn’t you be able to make a piece of wood exactly the size you need?”

To make a wooden square, you need two pieces of wood that have nice straight edges. Then you put them together at a 90° angle. If the parts are off a little at the end, you make a fine adjustment. It’s not that big a deal. It’s what woodworkers do after they’ve cut to a line and cleaned up the surfaces. When you read the article in the magazine, you’ll see that I made more than one square. I started having fun with them and made a bunch. For me a great project is one that ends with the desire to do it all again.

– Robert W. Lang, senior editor

When I attended the 20th anniversary of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, John Economaki of Bridge City Tools was at the next table. When Thomas Lie-Nielsen called out Bridge City as one of the other pioneering modern toolmakers, Economaki interrupted the speech.

"Bridge City!" Economaki cried out. "Going out of business for 25 years now!"

The crowd roared. What made it particularly funny for me was how true that comment is for so many small toolmaking companies. There is a perception among a lot of woodworkers that Economaki, Lie-Nielsen, Mike Wenzloff, Wayne Anderson, Konrad Sauer and even Karl Holtey must be very rich men.

After all, they command such a high price for their tools, how could they not be wealthy?

As someone who has corresponded with these gentlemen for years I can tell you flat out that they live a lot like the journalists I know. All the makers of high-end tools whom I know live fairly low to the ground.

In fact, what I have found is that the people who have gotten rich in toolmaking are those who make the inexpensive mass-market stuff. If you sell a million drill bits in a year and make $1 on each one… well, you can do the math.

So when I open the box containing a new tool from one of the smaller-scale toolmakers, I know it's a labor of love to bring these from an idea into the real world of steel, iron and brass.

The Bridge City DSS-6 Double Saddle Square is just such a product. Milled from stainless steel (a notoriously difficult material), this square is a pleasure in all its details and functions.

The knob that locks the 6" rule has beautiful elliptical knurling. The tab that locks the blade cinches down tightly with only a little pressure. And unlike spring-mounted tabs on other squares, this tool makes it simple to remove and then replace the rule with almost no fiddling.

The most interesting feature of the square is its built-in saddle square that folds out from the stock of the tool. You can use this to mark around corners with ease. (Remove the ruler when you do this; it's easy to replace.)

The engraved markings on the rule are as finely milled and readable as those on any machinists' square. All in all, the tool is perfectly balanced and a joy to use.

When Economaki was in our office for the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool event in May, he also showed me something else about the tool. He designed in a representation of himself into its shape. The knurled knob is his head. The tapered cutout in the handle represents the tapering of legs from waist to toe.

"That's me the toolmaker, in every tool," he said.

The DSS-6 is $229 and is available from Bridge City Tools.

— Christopher Schwarz

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When I first learned about the so-called Golden Mean or Golden Section I was enthralled by the concept. I actually remember the moment. I was in the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., in 1996 and just discovering that some of the geometry I learned in junior high actually had a use.

The Golden Section is a ratio (approx 1:1.618) that crops up in nature (such as the shell of a nautilus), Audrey Hepburn’s face and anywhere Elvis is sighted.

It also is supposed to turn up in great furniture and buildings. My efforts at designing furniture using the Golden Section or exploring furniture using the ratio as a guide always proved frustrating. Finding the Golden Section in great works is possible – if you looked in the right places, included parts of mouldings or excluded stiles or otherwise stretched the rules.

Now I’m not saying the Golden Section doesn’t exist, any more than the Trilateral Commission doesn’t exist or that a metal colander isn’t handy for blocking the transmissions from the mother ship.

But it just hasn’t worked for me and the pieces I like to design and the pieces I like to look at. Perhaps I’m not looking in the right place.

So after watching George Walker’s new DVD (“Unlocking the Secrets of Traditional Design”), I was intrigued that he didn’t once bring up the Golden Section, which usually at least rates a footnote in any discussion of design. Instead, he focused on whole-number ratios. And this afternoon, I decided to put his concepts to a quick test.

The cover project for the Autumn 2009 issue of Woodworking Magazine is a schoolbox built using a plan from an 1839 text. The schoolbox is built to the print. There is no modern interpretation of the piece’s form. The piece (which we’ll show here next week) is perfect to my eye.

So I took a pair of dividers to the piece using Walker’s techniques. Its elevation turned out to be a perfect – repeat perfect – 2:3 ratio. Then I decided to explore the piece using the column orders. And the phone rang.

— Christopher Schwarz

With every project there is always some tool that deserves an Academy Award-style acceptance speech.

“In building this chest of drawers I’d like to thank my mom for birthing me, Hanes for making the underwear that needed storing and my shoulder plane for fitting all the tenons in the web frames.”

As I wrap up the joinery on the Chinese stool I’m building this week, I already know which tool is a shoo-in for the award: My Chris Vesper bevel gauge. Every joint in this stool is completely hand-cut. And every joint is at an angle or is compound. (The tenons that attach the stretchers to the legs are angled at 5° while the shoulders are at 14.5°. Wacky.)

So the Vesper bevel gauge is one of four bevel gauges I’m using to guide my layout and my mortise chopping. Last night as I was cutting a tenon I pushed my carcase saw aside, which pushed my mallet, which pushed the Vesper gauge onto the concrete floor, lemming-style.

I picked it up and checked for damage. There was none to the brass body – I think the gauge landed on its blade. Then I checked the bevel’s angle setting, which has been locked in for two weeks. It hadn’t budged.

The Vesper gauge really has an iron grip. I’ve yet to encounter one that does a better job. Plus, like all the tools made by this young Australian, it is flawless. If you’d like to read more about Vesper and his tools, borrow or buy a copy of the latest Fine Tool Journal. I interviewed Vesper after he visited our Woodworking in America show in Berea.

His bevels start at $160 U.S. In the interests of full disclosure: I bought this gauge from Chris during his visit. Actually he bought two of my books and I paid him the difference. I think I paid him all in $20 bills. Now that I've admitted this in public, my wife has carte blanche to buy another pair of shoes.

— Christopher Schwarz

Really, I have enough clamps – a couple dozen – to do just about anything.

If I can't clamp it, I can always use pinch dogs, drawboring or some other dodge to get the job done.

But I don't think I have enough marking gauges. I always have at least three or four set up for a project at any given time. This week I have four unfinished projects on my bench, and I'm running out of gauges.

If you're a regular here, you know that I like the Tite-Mark cutting gauge. It is a marvel of micro-adjustable engineering. Today, let me introduce you to my other favorite gauge: The Les Outils Cullen slitting gauge (it's also a cutting gauge).

This gauge is made from Dymondwood, brass and steel. Dymondwood is a high-end plywood-like product that looks like an exotic wood and is durable and stable. The fit and finish of the Les Outils Cullen is superb. It's one of those tools where they make all the screw heads line up (somewhere, there's an engineer who is tingly all over right now).

Two features of this gauge make it stand out: The knife itself and the mechanism that locks the head to the beam. What I like about the knife is that you can easily reverse it in the beam. That means you can go to marking the baselines for your dovetails to slitting thin pieces of stock with just a simple turn of a thumbscrew. The knife comes quite sharp, is the proper shape and can score deeply if you ask it to, such as when defining the field of a raised panel.

The locking mechanism is the other standout. The bottom part of the beam is radiused and it drops into a matching cove in the head. A large thumbscrew locks everything in place. It is very solid all-in-all – I cannot detect any of the wiggling shimmy that plagues cheap gauges.

Les Outils Cullen Tools in Quebec makes a number of gauges that range in price from $39.95 to $79.95. The slitting gauge is $54.95 from TheBestThings.com. Highly recommended.

— Christopher Schwarz

In the shop, my mechanical pencil is as important as my eyeglasses. I use a mechanical pencil with a 0.5mm lead to darken in my knife lines when cutting dovetails, tenons or other joinery.

I like the really thin lead because I can usually drop it into a knife line and – with just light pressure – the lead will mark only the right and left sides of the knife line. That makes it easier to split my pencil line when sawing.

I know you are beginning to think I have an engineering background. Really, I’m not all that fussy.

While I like my mechanical pencils, I’ve always hated three things about them: the pencil mechanism itself, the lead and the eraser. Oh, and the pocket clip is flimsy, too.

I generally buy the Pentel pencils, which are the top of the line here in Kentucky. Their mechanisms tend to jam; I get about six months out of a pencil. The eraser is as effective as a gummy bear. The lead breaks too easily.

But heck, that’s what you get, right?

Today I was at Staples looking to replace my latest ex-Pentels when I noticed something I’d never seen before: “Super Hi-Polymer Lead,” which is supposed to be 25 percent stronger. (Stronger than what? Stinky cheese?)

I picked up a pack of the stuff with my new soon-to-be-dead pencils and used it to mark half-blind dovetails all afternoon. You know what? It really is stronger than the regular lead. I didn’t snap a single lead through six sets of dovetails. That is a record.

So if you’re a mechanical pencil dweeb like me, check out the Hi-Polymer stuff next time you need a refill. Hey, now I only hate two things about my mechanical pencils.

— Christopher Schwarz

I feel like a dirty English tool dealer this morning. But I’m OK with that.

Recently I purchased a bunch of brass-bound folding rules to give to co-workers and friends. Most of these were Stanley No. 62s, a common rule that I really like. If you want to know my favorite one, however, you’ll have to come to Cincinnati in May and fish it out of my tool cabinet.

In any case, the last folding rule I had left to give away was definitely an Alberto Fujimori (a former ruler). The scales on the outside were too dark to read. The scales on the inside of the rule were OK. The rule had cost only $1.76, so I wasn’t feeling overly shafted.

This folding rule was special because it had been used hard. The brass corners were worn from frequent use. One of the scales was charred a bit (that must have an interesting tale behind it). But despite the bad scales, its joints worked well and the rule had two of its three alignment pins intact – so it hadn’t been mistreated. Most folding rules are missing these pins, which keep all the components locked together when the rule is folded.

So I decided to try to restore this rule and see if I could turn it back into a nice piece of workshop equipment. British tool dealers have a bad reputation of taking beautifully patinated tools and wire brushing them into pupil-piercing brilliantness. I didn’t want to do that. So I started with a mild cleaning with mineral spirits and a toothbrush.

That did absolutely nothing.

So I consulted Philip E. Stanley’s book on folding rules ("A Source Book for Rule Collectors" – love the book, by the by). He recommends using Boraxo, a hand cleaner with lanolin. You can get it at home centers. It’s a bit gritty, smells like oranges and removes grease from your hands.

Here's the ruler after I treated one scale with Boraxo (at top). The other scale is untreated.

I cleaned one arm of the folding rule with the stuff last night and things began looking up. The paper towel got a brown skid-mark and the ruler got easier to read. However, Easter morning I woke up and (after making French toast and helping the kids find their eggs) I decided to do a little ruler resurrection. I was going to potentially throw my $1.76 down the metaphorical toilet.

I mixed up some wood bleach (oxalic acid). I like a solution of three tablespoons of powdered bleach with 16 ounces of hot water in a glass salsa jar. I use this bleach solution for removing iron stains when I steam-bend wood and then nail it (like when I make Shaker oval boxes).

Here's the ruler after I treated one scale with oxalic acid (at left). The right scale is untreated.

With rubber gloves on, I applied the bleach with a woven gray pad. Within a minute, the boxwood lightened considerably. But the ink on the rule stayed intact. Whew. I rinsed the rule in running water, allowed it to dry and applied two coats of wax.

Sorry tool collectors. You’re going to have to wait for another 50 years of patina before you can have this one. It’s going back to work.

— Christopher Schwarz

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My grandfather’s folding rule reads from right to left, while my tape measure reads from left to right. I never thought much about it, though I always did like using my folding rule when measuring the distance between the table saw’s rip fence and the blade because of this characteristic.

Then last week a reader pointed out that a new folding ruler from Holland reads from left to right – like a modern tape measure. Argh. It was a mystery that only a tool collector could unravel.

So I picked up a copy of “A Sourcebook for Rule Collectors” (Astragal Press) by Philip E. Stanley. What a delightful geek-fest. I have been consuming the thing all evening. (I even got a little chicken piccata on the cover, which explains its lemony-fresh smell.)

If you are even mildly interested in the history of measurement, this 286-page book will delight you. Not only does the book cover the different kinds of rules (carriagemaker’s rules, gear rules, glazier’s rules), it also discusses in detail how they were made. (It’s a very involved process.) And there are interesting articles on the origin of historical measurement systems, including the European units of length before the metric system.

But does the book have the answer to the question? An article by Kenneth D. Roberts in the book has this to say:

“A peculiar difference between American and English folding rules is that the former read from right to left; whereas the latter read from left to right. No known authoritative explanation has yet to be found to account for this difference. It is suggested that it was simply a matter of custom, similar to driving on different sides of the road.”

Another writer in the book notes that some English rules read from right to left.

So really, this is one for Leonard Nimoy to figure out.

— Christopher Schwarz

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Last week Roy Underhill took me to the back room of his new school in Pittsboro, N.C.

"Is this the office?" I asked.

"No," Roy said with a wicked grin. "This is where I keep the confiscated tape measures."

It might surprise some modern-day woodworkers that the spring-loaded tape measure wasn't always the tool of choice for laying out one's work. Instead, the preferred layout tool for woodworkers for many generations was the folding rule: a brass-bound boxwood device that would unfold to 24" – though other lengths were available.

And that's why Underhill bans tape measures from The Woodwright's School.

The invention of the modern tape measure is sometimes credited to Alvin J. Fellows of New Haven, Conn., who patented his device in 1868, though the patent states that several kinds of tape measures already existed on the market at that time.

Tape measures didn't become ubiquitous, however, until the 1930s or so. The tool production of Stanley Works points this out nicely. The company had made folding rules almost since its inception. The company's production of tape measures appears to have cranked up in the late 1920s, according to John Walter's book "Stanley Tools."

In our shop here at the magazine, there have always been people in both camps. Senior Editor David Thiel always preferred zig-zag folding rules. Publisher Steve Shanesy uses tape measures. Senior Editor Glen Huey prefers a 24" ruler (non folding) for many layout chores. I've always used a 12' tape and a couple combination squares.

But lately I've found myself holding my folding rule quite a bit. It's a common-as-dirt Stanley No. 66-1/4 that belonged to my grandfather, I believe. Someone in my family has thoughtfully coated the entire thing in a thick film of glossy polyurethane, which makes the device an eyesore.

Plus two of the rule's three joints were looser than I like – they flopped around like when my youngest sister broke her arm. But I fixed the ruler's problem. Perhaps this solution will get me crucified, but it worked great. I put the rule on the shop's concrete floor and tapped the pin in the ruler's hinges using a nail set and a hammer. About six taps peened the steel pin a bit, spreading it out to tighten up the hinge. Now the rule works like a new one.

I like using the folding rule so much because it's great for taking inside measurements on casework. It's stiff, so I don't have to worry about it sagging across a long distance. It's marked in 8ths on one side and 16ths on the other. That's great for most work – sometimes the 32nds and 64ths on machinist-style rules can make a measurement hard to read. And, of course, it won't put me in the "time out room" at Mr. Underhill's.

If you ever want to try using a folding rule and have difficulty finding a vintage one, you might consider the one from Garrett Wade with the delightful politically incorrect name: Blindman's Rule. It's $22.40 (sometimes it goes on sale), is made in Holland by Sybren and is easy to read.

— Christopher Schwarz


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I've had a vintage panel gauge for many years, and I've hated every minute of our relationship.

The beam flops around in the head, no matter how Conan you go on the thumbscrew. And so the gauge's pin tends to move around as you make your marks. While this defect doesn't hurt the accuracy of your line to a fault, it's as annoying as using a workbench that wobbles a bit.

A few weeks ago I bought one of the new panel gauges from Lie-Nielsen for $85 and have been on a few dates with it in the shop. So far, I'm quite impressed.

The locking mechanism is totally solid. The thumb screw pushes down on one corner of the 18"-long beam, forcing it into a triangular trough in the head. Thomas Lie-Nielsen got the inspiration for this from David Charlesworth's modified marking gauges (covered in his landmark "Furniture-Making Techniques Vol. I." on page 13). And then Lie-Nielsen made some further refinements.

Instead of a pin, the panel gauge uses a V-shaped knife, which slices cleanly. And it doesn't seem to follow the grain much, which is sometimes a concern when marking with the grain with a knife.

Also, you can turn the beam around and use the panel gauge as a pencil gauge. This is a sweet function that I added to several of my own marking gauges. To insert a pencil in the beam you simply loosen a screw, drop a pencil in the provided hole and tighten the screw. I prefer a pencil gauge when rough-sizing boards because it's so much easier to see than a scratch line.

As with everything from Lie-Nielsen, the fit and finish is great. And the details make the tool a pleasure to use, including the brass wear plate on the fence of the head, and the medallion inset into the head.

And my old panel gauge? I think I'm going to nail the head to the beam and let my youngest daughter use it like a sword.

— Christopher Schwarz