Is a Starrett a Starrett?

[Prashun Patel]

I was shopping for a cheap engineer's square online, and found

Starrett a K53-8-N for about $12.00. Do they make a low quality line of tools or is this a good buy?

[Ben Rivel]

Guess so. Now a days anyway. They probably need cheap Chinese tools on the market to stay selling to the masses as fewer and fewer people can justify their tools at the increasing prices of good quality, especially when so many people think Harbor Freight sells anything worth buying. Reviews arent great on it, but it does sound like it works: LINK

My suggestion: if you want Starret tools, save up your money and wait till you can buy the classics. Thats how I bought all of mine and I love them all. Top quality stuff for their tried and true product series.

[Prashun Patel]

I'm not spending $90 on a square, unless my family gets me one for Father's Day.

I like to have a bunch of squares of different lengths and markings.

While I certainly appreciate the need for square and flat, the cheap ones have not failed me so far.

[Tom Ewell]

Yeah, pretty much the same with me, I'll go to a 'good' square sent over by a machinist friend to setup equipment and the like but come time for cabinets and other woodworking projects I have many different sizes that are dependable for the job.
I always check my squares using the parallel-side-marking-opposites technique, if my eyeball says it's good, it's good.

[glenn bradley]

Amazon's got it for $10+. Starrett also make very reasonably priced metal self adhesive tapes. for quality and reasonable price I always seem to end up with PEC.

[Rick Lizek]

• L.S. Starrett Co. (Athol, MA): precision tools, including micrometers, calipers, levels, dial indicators, and gage blocks. Many still made in USA at facilities in MA, OH, MN, and NC. Some products made overseas, so check origin.

They do import from China as well.

• http://www.productsengineering.com/squares/index.html PEC are just as good as Starrett and mostly made in the US.
• http://grizzly.com/products/4-pc-Combination-Square-12-/G5726 I bought this for $30 6 years ago because I didn't want to bring my Starrett or Mitutoyo 4 pice set to work. I found hit to be just as accurate. A friend in Quality Control compared them on an Optical Comparator and it passed to get certification.
• http://www.amazon.com/Woodstock-D4030-Combination-Square/dp/B005W16MKO
• Here's the same square from Woodstock for $56.
• Come on...it's woodworking. Not making space shuttle parts.

[Cody Colston]

Krenov made his own squares out of wood because he wanted to eliminate as much metal around his bench as possible...bad for plane irons, chisel edges, etc. His thought was that they were as accurate as they needed to be for woodworking.

I bought a couple of engineer's squares from Rockler years ago, primarily for machine set-up. For woodworking, I most often use a cheap combination square I got at the box store. I don't even know the brand.

[Glenn de Souza]

Are you familiar with the Harry J. Epstein company? If not, check them out. They deal in a lot of factory seconds, mostly with minor cosmetic issues. You can do much better than a "cheap" square and not break the bank. I've bought a few PEC squares there that were accurate out of the box, and some very nice UK made rules and straightedges also. I tried a couple of engineer's squares but had to true both of them up to be accurate. Those were made in India, and maybe the eight year old kid that made them was having an off day.

Also, while you didn't ask about it, I might add that truing up a sliding type square is very easy with a needle file and a gentle touch. Hope this is useful to you,

[Chris Padilla]

Plastic squares/triangle from the art supply store. Single digit dollars for a pair of 'em.

I know, not exactly a square but handy for the money.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I'll let you know in a few projects how well Starrett's Chinese imports work. My new Starrett 16' tape measure from Amazon delivered this morning.

[David C. Roseman]

I'll let you know in a few projects how well Starrett's Chinese imports work. My new Starrett 16' tape measure from Amazon delivered this morning.

Ken, I'm betting you'll be happy with it. The dozen or so HF freebie 25' tape measures I've checked out of curiosity are just as accurate as my made-in-the USA Lufkins and Stanleys. My guess is Starrett insists on better quality control than HF.

[Chris Fournier]

I bought a right proper Starrett combo square (protractor and centre finder incl.) 23 years ago, heck made in the USA even. $168.00 at the time. Looking at it makes me shiver to this day. Money well spent. I have engineers square a plenty, never paid more than $20.00 for one and they are plenty accurate.

Buy what you can afford and feel comfortable with as they will all get you where you need to be.

I too have a box store try square that I bought when I was framing houses to pay for university but it is a site tool for me. The tensioner wore out so I re-welded and machined it to make sure that this old work horse would see me through to the end of my days. It is plenty accurate to this day.

Moral of the story? A bit weak but when it comes to FWW I like to use fine tools. It's a package deal!

My aluminum framing squares can be tuned with a nail set and a hammer when needed. That's fine by me too.

[Greg R Bradley]

Just because Starrett make some really good tools does NOT mean that all Starrett tools are good. Some are pretty poor.

[John Gornall]

I have a top of the line Starret combination square set - regular head, center head, protractor head and rule - Made in Scotland

[Rich Engelhardt]

I was shopping for a cheap engineer's square online, and found

Starrett a K53-8-N for about $12.00. Do they make a low quality line of tools or is this a good buy?

Pass on it.
I ran across those at Hartville Hardware a couple years back - before they moved to the new store.
I asked the sales guy to pull a good adjustable square out of the display case so we could check the trueness of the K53-8-N. We went through about 10 of them on the display peg and they were all so far out of square it was pathetic.

The sales guy was rather shocked they were that bad. He said he was going to talk to the manager about pulling them off the shelf.