Tightening a Square

[9fingers]

After chasing round to find why my trust leigh jig was not producing square HB dovetail joints, I find my everyday 'blued steel rosewood & brass faced square has worked loose ( may well have been dropped). With suitable force it will move out of square and stay out.

Has anyone succeeded in tightened one of these squares? I Could ream a taper hole in it and drive in a taper pin or is this a waste of time and I should just buy another one.

I've been a bit put off by comments elsewhere (the other side!) about the poor quality of even 'good name' squares and the need to go and select one against a known reference rather than buy mail order.

I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Bob

[sainty]

Bob, the general advice given in the pursuit of squareness is to ditch the woodworkers square and get yourself an engineers square - which I'm sure you must have loads of!

rgds


Stu

[engineerone]

bob, you can of course try to close up the rivets using the oldfashioned clout method with something like a drill punch, but then of course you may well still have to adjust the square by tapping at the end to get it back square.

as sainty says, reference off a longish engineers square, but in fact i find the square that trend now sell, the m3 is the best, since it has wings to give you the possibility to square round three surfaces, but also is adjustable with the allen keys therein.

paul

[mrgrimsdale]

You can reference a square off itself - draw a line, turn the square over and draw another line on top of the first one. If they coincide its a square square.

[engineerone]

but jacob that does not adjust the square itself

paul

[9fingers]

Dec 5, 2008 10:56:49 GMT engineerone said:

bob, you can of course try to close up the rivets using the oldfashioned clout method with something like a drill punch, but then of course you may well still have to adjust the square by tapping at the end to get it back square.

as sainty says, reference off a longish engineers square, but in fact i find the square that trend now sell, the m3 is the best, since it has wings to give you the possibility to square round three surfaces, but also is adjustable with the allen keys therein.

paul

Hi Paul,

Your first suggestion raises (to me anyway) the question of how the rivets work on this type of square. Do they just hold the slot closed and rely on the large surface area to grip the steel blade or are they as I would hope tapered pins to align with the holes in the blade.

If the latter is true then I assume that the damage to my square to make it loose will to have either bent the taper pins and/or made the blade holes slightly oval.

I'm tempted to resolve my lack of knowledge by taking it to pieces, then re- assemble with three new taper pins in reamed holes with a triangular pattern 180 degrees rotated from the original ones.
Having spent the time and potentially f**ked it up! I can then my a nice new trend one and put it down to experience.
;D
I'm now signed off work having had my tonsils and epiglottis removed yesterday so will have time to play. I'll need to concentrate on something to take my mind off what feels at the moment like a brick in my throat!!
The oh so sympathetic nurses gave me toast for breakfast saying it would be good for me! Sadisitic bit**es! Bet they go off and laugh about it in the staff room!!

cheers

Bob

[engineerone]

hi bob, well you'll have to stop speaking, and swallowing ;D

good luck with the recovery.

personally i have not taken a wood square apart, but frankly would think that they are only straight pins as a holding device
and they are assembled in a jig which at manufacture keeps it "square"

but plainly, many of them are not square.

i am lucky enough to have a number of my engineers squares, including some i bought cheaply about 5 years ago. but also i use a long square which is i think a rafter square, which i use with a veritas edge to align it along the panels. i also use a veritas machined item which is good for smaller work.

frankly with the long term prognosis for the pound being quite low against the dollar. at the moment it is about 1.50 dollars to the £ whereas earlier in the year it was 2:1, which means that the well made veritas stuff will be even more expensive.

so maybe there is room for a well made english wooden square again ;D ;D

the trend one is though a decent bit of kit, and adjustable without wacking with a pin punch, like you need to do with an engineers square.

paul

[9fingers]

Hi paul, Thanks for the good wishes.

I think I will clamp the wooden part on to my milling machine table and clock it in parallel to one axis. Then tap the blade until that is parallel to the other axis. When all is straight and true I can use the mill as a jig borer and put in the taper pins and mill off the ends flush. Should be a good un then. Total over kill and not economically viable if I was costing in my time but I would know it was right. That is the engineer in me coming out!!

I can still put the trend on my Xmas list.

Cheers

Bob

[mrgrimsdale]

It'd be simpler to file an edge until it's true enough.