A Week In The Workshop 198: Square Enough?
- petermillard
- Sep 10, 2023
- 1 min read
Direct link - https://youtu.be/cbfQt-F7uwE
OK, so apologies, it took longer to get through this than I thought it would - and maybe there’s more to come as well, let me know what you think down below.
Just quickly the latest ‘square enough’ samples arrived after I’d shot this, so I’ll just add a note here to say that they’re available in the store and your member discount is applied in the usual way.
Direct link to these products in the store is pasted below, and as I mentioned previously prices have increased since I last had these available a couple of years ago - Birch ply, VAT etc.. etc..- but I've kept the increase modest (+£5) for this first run, and the member discount is in place to help reduce the sting a little. Also bear in mind that these come in pairs, unlike say, UJK, who price them individually... 🤔
Cheers all, and enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Peter
Great video Peter, this has really helped me. I have frustratingly strived for accuracy and struggled to understand why something is a fraction of a mm out. I will be setting myself up for consistency over accuracy from now on. Hearing you say that you are ok if a wardrobe was 1mm out is great for me, as I have always looked to your work as the pinnacle of accuracy and wondered why I could get there 😂. Consistency over accuracy makes perfect sense when you think about it and I think a video on this subject would be helpful for many people.
Sorry for the long comment.
After a few questions on here I built a really rather large storage unit for my garage which I am really pleased with the 'squareness' of. I have to say I'll be buying some of the square enough blocks now they are available again (does the discount just go on when we follow the above link or is there a code?) but having made a 2m by 900mm high unit I found tacking the full sheet of 6mm ply I had got to use as backing to a corner and using the factory cut corner as a guide worked well. very much not the easiest way to do it but clamping roofing squares into corners really wasn't working! I know…
a very good point well thought out. when does anyone in furniture/box making ever require accuracy to less than 1mm? a standard tri square or set square will be accurate or "square enough" for the vast majority of wood workers in most applications.
we build bridges, lift shafts, buildings, etc to tolerances in civil engineering
so who defines tolerence in a woodworkers making? the worker does.
and as we are human the variables exist, eyesight, instruments of marking, measuring will always contribute to tolerence which is why it exists. marking knives are excellent in timber and worth using for a good accurate line. especially good for minimising tear out, transferring lines to adjacent faces, etc.
Hi Peter
Just to let you know that my subscription came out automatically. As for accuracy I came from a toolmaking background where the coarsest measurements were in Hundredths of a millimetre. It took me a while to adjust to both carpentry where 3mm seemed to be the standard when I was dismantling for renovation through to about 0.5mm for joinery.
I have to agree with most of the comments that consistency is the main point and it is a case of diminishing returns trying to achieve perfection.
My point is that "Square Enough" is fine for 99% of tasks.
Great video as always spot on with the square enough consistency is key
An mft could be perfectly square but the splinter guard on your rail could be off due to blade changes etc
As you mention tracksaw wobble on the rail
Guide rails not being perfectly straight festool do actually recommend when joining guide rails that you leave a small space between the guide rails there new guide rail joining bars have etched markings showing this
It’s woodworking not precision engineering as my dad always says we aren’t robots