Length of winding sticks

[Tony Wilkins]

I'm finally getting around to making winding sticks for myself. I had a piece of straight grained walnut I thought it would be great. However, it's only 12 inches long. Is that long enough for general woodworking? If not, how long?

[Jim Koepke]

How wide is the widest piece you will want to check?

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Mine are 36" I use them on everything that is larger than what I can check on my reference surface.

[Frederick Skelly]

I use the ones LV sells (aluminum) - they are 18" long.

[Tony Wilkins]

How wide is the widest piece you will want to check?

jtk

Not sure, probably wider than 12".

i thought about doing really long ones like Brian but wasn't sure that it wouldn't be unwieldy on smaller items.

[Mike Henderson]

Mine are about 24" and I haven't needed longer.

Mike

[Tony Wilkins]

Follow on question. What size base do you guys find stable?

also, depending on what wood I use - is there any reason they couldn't be painted?

[Patrick Chase]

I'm finally getting around to making winding sticks for myself. I had a piece of straight grained walnut I thought it would be great. However, it's only 12 inches long. Is that long enough for general woodworking? If not, how long?

IMO there are two considerations:

- As others have pointed out, they need to be as wide as long as the width of whatever you're measuring, or any cup in the piece will cause you to mis-estimate wind.

- Accuracy. The human eye has a best case resolution of about 1 arc-second, measured from the eye to whatever you're viewing. Assuming the remote stick is about 4' away, this means that you'll be able to estimate the far stick's projection above the near stick to within about 14 mils. The shorter the stick, the more of an angular error that will represent.

We're talking about really small errors here though...
-

[Kees Heiden]

Longer is better, a longer one multiplies the errors in the board. A winding stick just as long as your boards are wide would tell you not much more then looking at the board itself. Allthough the winding sticks do make it easier then piering over the boards surface. 12" sounds very short to me. Mine are about twice that. Much longer and it becomes unwieldy on the bench.

[john zulu]

A good question.

To short you can't view the twist.
Too long it will not balance on narrow boards.
I went with 24". Has served me very well till to date.

[Warren Mickley]

Follow on question. What size base do you guys find stable?

also, depending on what wood I use - is there any reason they couldn't be painted?

I would not paint the sticks; you may want to true them up at some later date. My sticks are 3/8 thick.

I have used the same 16 inch mahogany winding sticks since 1978. I would not want sticks very much longer. If you are truing wood by hand, you want to be using the sticks constantly so you want something that is easy to place on the work and put to the side. Long sticks are unhandy for balancing on the edge of a board.

12 inches is short, but I would rather use 12 inch sticks than 36 inch sticks. I would say go ahead and make the 12 inch sticks; you might find something that you would want to do differently on a more permanent set. The worse case is that you have two 12 inch straight edges, which are handy in themselves.

[Bill Houghton]

My cheap aluminum levels from yard sales, vials knocked out so I don't mistake them for actual levels, are two feet long.

[Tony Wilkins]

I would not paint the sticks; you may want to true them up at some later date. My sticks are 3/8 thick.

I have used the same 16 inch mahogany winding sticks since 1978. I would not want sticks very much longer. If you are truing wood by hand, you want to be using the sticks constantly so you want something that is easy to place on the work and put to the side. Long sticks are unhandy for balancing on the edge of a board.

12 inches is short, but I would rather use 12 inch sticks than 36 inch sticks. I would say go ahead and make the 12 inch sticks; you might find something that you would want to do differently on a more permanent set. The worse case is that you have two 12 inch straight edges, which are handy in themselves.

Thanks all for the input. I think I may go ahead with the 12" ones since I have the billet 5 squared and all I need to do is rip it and do an inlay strip or 'targets'. It would be a good thing to see what I like and not in using them. I have some beech to make longer ones and/or a 3' straight edge.

[Tony Wilkins]

Now for longer ones - I have some Beech and some walnut left overs that that I can use. I have 8/4 in the walnut and 4/4 in both. Which would you use and why?

[Jim Koepke]

I would rip the 4/4 in half leaving it about 3/8 +/- when finished. Either beach with walnut trim or walnut with beach trim.

jtk