verifying square corners

[Rick Moyer]

I want to make or purchase something but can't think of what they're called, so I'm having trouble searching options. I know Veritas makes rods with ends to measure across/inside corners. This is something that you could use to measure cabinet sides where the dadoes would be, too. Or also as a story stick to some extent.

I know I can make something too. What do you use, and what are the positives/negatives of the different methods/tool? (hope you know what I'm talking about)

Here is an example:http://www.veritastools.com/Products/Page.aspx?p=597
There's is called a bar gauge
What other options do I have for either making or purchasing?

[Bill Huber]

For the lay out of dados and things like that I use a Woodpecker story stick pro, great tool and I like it and use it a lot.
http://www.woodpeck.com/storystickpro.html

For checking cabinets for square I just use my tape measure and never have a problem, corner to corner and they better be the same.
For smaller thing I just us a Woodpecker square does fine.

[Ken Krawford]

Rick, I use this tape measure add on I purchased from Lee Valley - http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...66&cat=1,42936
It works quite well and it's inexpensive.

[lowell holmes]

I use two flat shop cut flat sticks and two binder clips. You can bevel one end of each stick.
You also can have different length sticks as needed to make the measurement.

[Ralph Okonieski]

Although I've made and tried several things to measure square, I always go back to just using the tape measure to measure corner to corner. My shop is small and the "bar" type devices always seem to bump into something else when measuring. The tape measure is generally in the pocket of my shop apron or there is one close by.

[glenn bradley]

I have a couple of sets of bar gauge heads and a collection of various prepared-length sticks.

bar gauge heads.jpg

I used shop made for years and then added these to a wish list once upon a time. These are designed for confirming square and for inside measurements (which I thought was just marketing fluff but, I actually used them for this . . . once). For dado placement I would use a piece of scrap as a story stick.

[Brian Brightwell]

[QUOTE=Bill Huber;2028365]For the lay out of dados and things like that I use a Woodpecker story stick pro, great tool and I like it and use it a lot.
http://www.woodpeck.com/storystickpro.html

Slick looking tool Bill. What size do you use? I was thinking 24 inch might be the most practical?

[Rick Moyer]

[QUOTE=Brian Brightwell;2028418]

For the lay out of dados and things like that I use a Woodpecker story stick pro, great tool and I like it and use it a lot.
http://www.woodpeck.com/storystickpro.html

Slick looking tool Bill. What size do you use? I was thinking 24 inch might be the most practical?

I'd like that answer too. Was looking at that item.
I should clarify about dadoes. I was think about using what I asked about to measure the inside dimension between two dado cut-outs. For instance, once the carcass is built you could measure the needed width of the shelf/bottom/etc required to fit between the dadoes.
anyway, thanks for the ides so far.

Glenn, what size material to you need for the bar gauge heads to work with? That seems like what I think I'd want. You can transfer them to whatever length you would need! Ideally a metal rod would be great.

[Bill Huber]

[QUOTE=Brian Brightwell;2028418]

For the lay out of dados and things like that I use a Woodpecker story stick pro, great tool and I like it and use it a lot.
http://www.woodpeck.com/storystickpro.html

Slick looking tool Bill. What size do you use? I was thinking 24 inch might be the most practical?

I have the 48" and bought an extra set of stops, I really like it and found that not having to measure things, things come out better.

[Bill Huber]

[QUOTE=Rick Moyer;2028445]

I'd like that answer too. Was looking at that item.
I should clarify about dadoes. I was think about using what I asked about to measure the inside dimension between two dado cut-outs. For instance, once the carcass is built you could measure the needed width of the shelf/bottom/etc required to fit between the dadoes.
anyway, thanks for the ides so far.

Glenn, what size material to you need for the bar gauge heads to work with? That seems like what I think I'd want. You can transfer them to whatever length you would need! Ideally a metal rod would be great.

You can use the story sticks from Woodpecker to measure the shelf width with no problem.

[glenn bradley]

Glenn, what size material to you need for the bar gauge heads to work with? That seems like what I think I'd want. You can transfer them to whatever length you would need! Ideally a metal rod would be great.

Approx 1/4" x 3/4". Very easy to rip strips off of a 3/4" blank out of the scrap bin. I point the tips to get into corners. They are supplied with the brass pins which provide a "reach" into locations to measure. These actually work really well for me as I have embraced the method of measuring off of your parts as opposed to religiously following a parts list. You just take out the 2 screws to swap bars. I often find that one bar remains the same and I just substitute the second bar in varying lengths a required. I have two sets as one is setup for most drawer sizes and does not get changed. The other set gets swapped around.

[Roy Turbett]

I want to make or purchase something but can't think of what they're called, so I'm having trouble searching options. I know Veritas makes rods with ends to measure across/inside corners. This is something that you could use to measure cabinet sides where the dadoes would be, too. Or also as a story stick to some extent.

Here is an example:http://www.veritastools.com/Products/Page.aspx?p=597
There's is called a bar gauge
What other options do I have for either making or purchasing?

Those look like a variation of an old fashioned folding carpenters ruler - the kind with a brass sliding insert. They work great for both inside and outside measurements and fit in that long pocket on the side of your carpenter pants. And they don't have any tiny screws to lose.

[Alan Lightstone]

Story Stick Pro for me, also.

[Rick Moyer]

Story Stick Pro for me, also.

Yeah, I ordered one of these earlier today. Might do everything I want, or else I'll consider something else too. I had been thinking about getting one, you guys pushed me over the edge . Still thinking about the bar gauge heads Glenn posted about.

[ian maybury]

'Verifying' square corners is one (important) thing, but marking/laying out one in the first place is perhaps the more basic question.

One that's deceptively tricky.

I have a good quality Bosch electronic angle gauge, but like everything except lab grade stuff it only goes to about 1/10 degree accuracy which actually isn't all that precise. Not when it comes to cutting say a 3ft x 3ft panel truly square.

Framing squares get knocked out very easily (although you can tune them with a centre punch), and anyway are hard to align accurately to edges unless fitted with batons to locate against an edge like a try square is.

A bar/trammel compass makes it possible to construct/draw a right angle, but it's a cumbersome process and the accuracy is determined by how well you can split a pencil line or similar.

The five sided cut used to set a cross cut fence seems to be one of the most precise ways of setting a right angle - maybe the trick is to use the resulting set up to cut a large triangle cut from say 1/4in aluminium sheet and fit it with locating batons?

Has anybody got any better methods?

ian