How Square is Your Square: A dial indicator method

just measure our square references from our existing furniture. Right? =A0:= )

patternmaking

Which is as good as a foot for a luthier, who works to within 0.004" or better.

and I feel confident making that claim.

measure our square references from our existing furniture. Right? :)

LOL... Is this why you never post any of your work? I don't find 32's of an inch tolerances acceptable in woodworking. If you want multiple width and length pieces to fit precisely within a given constraint you have to do a lot better than 32's. A whole lot better.

measure our square references from our existing furniture. Right? :)

patternmaking

Tight fitting half lap joints are sloppy with a 1/32" gap.

Reminds me of a job we participated in last year where the inset door/drawer reveal was 3/32", or else.

Thank gawd for those poly shims ....

square using a dial indicator. The method works in theory. I've tried it and it seems to work in practice. A caveat is that the square needs a thick edge to support a stylus.

Seriously it sound like Brian has a good method to check your master square if you are doing that much in the shop you need at least one master square of that accuracy.

Personally I don't own a gauge of that precision, as in my amateur work I would not know what to do with it if I did.

measure our square references from our existing furniture. Right? :)

patternmaking

This stack of 8 muntins were made with the aid of my kerfmaker. And each is 5/32" thick total after drum sanding. The joints are 5/64" deep.

A commonly overlooked factor when using dial indicators that often interferes with obtaining accurate absolute measurements is accounting for the angle that the plunger makes with the surface it contacts. I'm a little rusty on trig & geometry, so I'll leave the calculation of that effect on this method as an exercise for some other reader...

Better watch out, next yhing you know Steve Strickland will be back explaining how to cut a board to 1/1000 of an inch on his tablesaw... :)

snipped-for-privacy@sdf.lNoOnSePsAtMar.org (Larry W) wrote in news:kc7ovb$2t8$1 @speranza.aioe.org:

Oh, my. I'm surprised anyone remembers that. IIRC, though, Steve was claiming

You're right, after I hit the "send" key I realized I should have written

Notes on the UKP-03 Concert Ukulele Plan, Scott E. Antes 2006/2012: "The concert ukulele, in general, does not require particularly close tolerances. The major exception to this statement is the fret spacing. The careful builder will hold fret spacing closer than

Overall instrument size doesn't much matter -- what does, is how well parts are fit together. Musical instruments are machines. Last banjo I did a major rebuild on went from sounding tinny and noisy to loud and punchy simply by reseating the parts for a closer fit.

Norris smoother.