I saw someone using one on a YouTube video and used a decking project I'd got to do as the excuse to buy one. "What do you need more tools for? " is usually the cry from Mrs Cakemonster but even she was impressed with how useful it was! To be fair to her, she doesn’t mind getting involved and was doing the marking out while I did the cutting and fixing. In short if you haven't got one, get a rafter square, so useful 👍
"What do you need more tools for? "
Ahh Swanson, that's right. They only had Empire at my hardware store, both aluminium and plastic ones.One difference is the Swanson has notches to aid with scribing lines parallel to the edge of the timber.
The notches do come in handy
There's plenty of Speed/Rafter Square videos on YouTube. This one covers the basics:
Even if only using these to make tight right angle cuts from saws with no real fence they are worth their weight in Gold for me!
Found this online, from a physical store nearby. Might get one, they are really useful and versatile.
See if you can find a Swanson one with the notches. Do you really want imperial?
I wonder if I could mod some notches into my speed square......
I have a few squares that I use but none of them had any of the scribe notches in them. After seeing a video where people were using their squares with the notches in them, I decided to go buy a new one. I ended up buying this 6 inch square with a fold out portion that makes it 12 inches. At first I thought it was pretty gimmicky but now, over time I have started to really like it.
I've searched the interwebs for it in Portugal, but this was the only one I found. Not much variety of tools offered here.
Could always try I would say a hacksaw blade or a file the file would likely yield a better result as long as it wasn't a very thick file a triangle file might be an even better option, you could file it as small or as big as you wanted but have to be careful to keep it as close to the measurement as you could