I read a bunch of review on Starrett squares at amazon.com--they have
a lot of particularly satisfied customers!

Beginner's question: Say I use a fine square to mark a 3 or 4 inch
line "perfectly", with an awl or knife. How can I extend that line
to, say,
10 or 20 inches with accuracy that would please Starrett's customers?
Does it suffice to place the knife blade into the first cut, and
press the
edge of the Starrett rule up against it and continue cutting with the
knife against the rule?
If not, what is the SOP here?

A long while ago when I actually made a lot of projects, they always
seemed
just a little bit off where ends were supposed to meet and such.
Back then
I was probably using a ruler and a pencil--where, of course, the
corner of a ruler
could double as a square... I thought someone said that a good
craftsman
doesn't blame his tools...but I agree that it seems to make sense to
spend a little on the
one tool that all of the rest of the tools are going to be set up
with... Thanks.

Bill


Bill,

If you think that you will be making an investment in bigger 'n better
power tools in the future, then they will require accurate setup to get
the best out of them. If you are, then make the investment in a few
measuring tools that will achieve the accuracy needed to verify whether
your tool setup is good enough or dead-on. How accurate and to what
tolerance you want to work to is your call.

But to answer your question, another tool you may want is a reasonably
accurate straight-edge like these

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...at=1,240,45313

Bob S.