A Question on Saws ?

Just bought my self a new short toolbox saw . It's a Stanley Fat Max similar to pic below. Now it shows clearly it has 90° and 45° quick reference points on the handle. You can see the 90° marked on the cardboard sleeve. Very pleased to have these , but what do I use them for ? Any of you toolies out there know what this is used for on a saw

 

It's basically a set square. Very useful I find when marking a piece of wood to be cut exactly straight. Set the handle on the wood, and the straight top edge of the blade is at 90 degrees, or 45 if you use the 45 degrees edge of the handle. Then just run the pencil along the top of the blade and there's you're nice precise line to cut along.

 

@clueless1 , that's it ! Now that will be very useful for marking cuts on the wood . saves getting the combination square out .

 

Well my joy was short lived . Just checked the squareness of the saw square , by scribing a line then reversing the saw and checking up to the line. It's 3mm out (1/8" ) over 380mm (15") Not even good enough for my hacking and screwing ! Back to my combi square.....

 

Stanley must be losing their edge (pun only partially intended). Both my Stanley saws have been bang on.

 

Thread linked to Stanley Customer Services, see what they have to say

 

This is the second of two preliminary steps when marking up.

The first is to choose the reference edge by holding it up to your eye and looking along the length of the edge - you would be looking for a flat edge (ie with no hills or valleys).

A warped plank of wood which has bowed along its edge would give the misalignment in the scribed lines even though the saw may be perfectly square.

If squareness is important but marking up using this method gives errors then place the plank in situ where it is to be fitted and mark up from there.

This is what we teach in our mini workshop sessions to the newly signed up members of our community garden.

 

I actually work for Stanley , they must have given me the staff rejects !
@misterQ , thanks for that . It was a quick check , I'll make sure I check again against a true edge.

 

I tend to think that this is only as a rough guide, it is never intended to be precise.
I never use it myself, but maybe out on site it could have a use as a quick guide.

 

I've actually seen people flip the saw over to the opposing side to check if it's square, with a greater than [1] 50:50 chance of not spotting at error.

[1] It's greater than 50:50 because the combination of an error + non-parallel sides can also give a false confirmation even with the saw set to the correct 'hand'.

 

Then after all this you have to saw straight down your marked line !

And always remember - Measure twice , cut once .

On the subject of measurement , the UK went metric in 1969 . Now I use millimeters continually for engineering drawings etc . But I find for building work around the house that feet and inches are far easier to use . It seems all to easy to make an error on a tape measurement using metres - cm and mm because they are so densely marked on the tape . Also an incorrect cut will always be to short , never too long . Thus needing another trip to B and Q !

 

I've used metric since 1970, the building trade went metric then also, but I can still remember the DIY shops at the time selling timber to the public in units, each unit was funnily enough 300mm.

I've never ever used CM they just confuse the issue, thought it was only the BBC and Blue Peter that used them

mm and metres, then no confusion.

 

If the sides arn't parallel, you might as well throw the square away

T