Going to order a couple squares and keep going back and forth between 2 piece or 3 piece. The center finder seems interesting, but wondering if people actually use it? Or does it just take up space in your toolbox and forgotten?
Interesting, the HF one is cheaper that the difference in price of the 2 PEC blems I was looking at.
I am pretty new to turning, but I have been starting with square stock, marking the center by drawing an x across the corners to find center. But being new to turning not sure if I will run into more non square stock? I was doing something a few months ago and was trying to figure out how to center on a circle, i ended up just eyeballing it, so wasn't sure how often that comes up.
SMP - I guess you would get more refined answers if you mentioned
what you think you would use the comb. square for.
like Loren said: it is a machinist's tool for the most part, that has found
its way into woodworking.
if you are going to be turning wood stock, most any home-made (or HF) tool will work.
some of the cabinet and furniture makers here have their own view on certain tools.
I am not from that camp.
it just depends on you and your projects. (and your budget).
I use the centerfinder head for marking the center of round or square turning blanks to mount between centers. There are other ways to skin the cat but I had the head and an extra blade so that's how it gets done in my shop. Otherwise, nope, never used it for anything else.
I use mine removed from the rule as a wrap around square for transferring marks to an adjoining face. I've never used it as a center finder but one day I might.
Ummm, no. The center finder does not work on rectangular pieces unless one has an exceptionally good eye aligning the ruler parallel to one of the workpiece's sides. Congratulations to bandit571 for having an exceptionally good eye.
With a rectangular workpiece there is nothing to prevent the center finder from sliding side to side. Think of the extreme case: One of the centerfinder's arms is nestled up to one of the parallel faces of the workpiece. The ruler will then take off at 45º from the adjacent corner. You can smoothly move/rotate the centerfinder around to the opposite face of the workpiece without lifting or removing it. At the end the opposite arm of the centerfinder will be parallel to the workpiece. During the transition the intersection of the ruler and the end of the workpiece will travel all the way across the end of the workpiece.
The centerfinder will only work 100% accurately on a circular workpiece. I use one all the time in metalworking where the base stock is frequently a round rod or cylinder. In woodworking, where the base stock is almost always rectangular, it's less useful. Finding the center of dowels springs to mind.
For the OP - IMO this falls into the "order one when you find you need it" category.
Actually, the centerfinder could be used to scribe a line from each corner of the stock in Bandit's picture and the intersection would be on the centerline of the board.
But the way Bandit did it, it's not hard to eyeball the blade parallel to get close enough for woodwork.
I guess assuming the piece was cut square, lining up the end with the same measurement on both sides of the rule, like at the 2" mark, would make it parallel as well
All I needed was a single point/mark…the set another combo square to that mark from one edge, flip the square over to confirm the marks are the same from both edges. The 2 other lines down the edges? Well the "rack" sits in a 1/2" x 1/2" groove in both of the tap racks…..showing me how much room will be left to drill the holes to hold the dies…I wanted the dies to sit centered between the tap racks….
End view of whats is going on. Dies are 1" diameter. Doesn't leave much room for error….
And, yes..these old MK II Eyeballs are still in very good working order….
I use mine frequently for woodturning. Even if not perfectly round, you will get a bunch of lines crossing near to center, making it easy the pick a point close to center. If turning a 10 or 12 inch log, that little plastic finder is not long enough.
The center finder head without the rule installed works well as a saddle square. That is useful for drawing lines on a face and edge of a board, perpendicular to both and in the same plane.
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