The Crucible Bench Square is a handy, lightweight and accurate tool that’s useful for many woodworking operations. Based on an 18th-century square in A.J. Roubo’s book, “l’Art du menuisier,” our version uses modern technology to ensure it is accurate and stays that way.
The square is $28 and is available in our store.
The Bench Square is great for checking a board’s edge when planing joints for a panel glue-up. The tool’s square end is nice for marking crosscuts (with a pencil or knife). And the built-in angles can be used to check sawn miters for accuracy and even set the tilt of your table saw’s blade. Like Roubo, I keep one hanging right under my benchtop so it’s always handy.
The originals were made from one piece of walnut, so they were fragile and tended to go out of square because of wood movement. Our version has a blade that is made from 1/4” Baltic birch that is laser cut so it’s dead-nuts accurate, immune to wood movement and has no short grain. Then it is joined to a maple stock that is machined for a perfect fit.
After assembly, the Bench Square is trued up on machinery to ensure the 45° and 90° are perfect enough for woodworking. The tool is supplied without a finish, like most wooden bench tools.
And because we know it’s a handy tool, we’ve added a hang hole so you can keep it close under your workbench. The square measures 4-1/2” x 9” and weighs less than 3 oz.
Yes, you absolutely could make this square for yourself. And if that’s your inclination, please go right ahead. In fact, here are the dimensions on the blade of the square. The handle (also called the “stock”) is 3/4” x 1” x 5” maple with a 1/4” x 1/2” groove plowed on one edge.
But if you want yours to be perfect (for woodworking) right from the start, our square is a good value. As always, all our tools are made in the U.S.A.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. As always, we hope to supply these squares to our retailers outside of the USA that carry Crucible Tools. We are still ramping up production. After we get it up to full speed, we’ll be able to send these to retailers. Thanks for your patience.
Just ordered today! Have a couple of upcoming projects that will be perfect for this tool.
Oh. So does the 45 side now go all the way through the stock? That is an improvement over the original blog!
I noticed that change as well.
Yes. We want John Cashman to be happy.
I will declare myself 100 percent happy if you get Megan to autograph mine.
You will 100 percent have to talk to Megan about that.
Should I drop a line to Meghan and have her ask Megan?
You head faked me. I thought they weren’t going to be available till this weekend, otherwise I would have checked earlier. No big deal, I got my order in and am now a happy camper.
The weekend begins on Thursday in Kentucky
I just saw that Lee Valley is now offering five other Crucible tools on top of the card scraper (Holdfast, hammer, protractor, curves and chairpanzee). Very good news for us north of the border! The square will follow at some point I guess.
That is the hope on our end!
My little workshop recently burned to the ground. The bench square i just purchased is my very first replacement tool since, and I’m hoping it’s good luck.
Yours in spirit,
Robin Alexander
You could have it hang nice and straight if you moved the hole about an inch or so to the left.
Either by trial and error, or a friendly engineer woodworker could calculate the center of gravity.
Beautiful!
BTW: Don’t say “dead nuts” around old people
yea, what he said
Chris and Company,
Nice tool! But, another tool I and others would be interested in is a Sector. I’ve made a couple but mine (made from wood) have a tendency to wear out at the arm connection. Would you consider designing and manufacturing one by Crucible Tools?
Well, First Light Works used to make one (I bought what I think was one their last ones in London in 2019), so seeing that Crucible has taken over production of some of the other FLW tools, that might perhaps be something for the Crucible Tools pipeline?
Otherwise, there is currently a very nice sector made by Acer-Ferrous Toolworks, and sold through Red Rose Reproductions! I have one of those, too, and I think the appropriate word to describe it would be “zowie!”, or possible “phwoaar!”.
It is not inexpensive, but in my opinion of a quality more than commensurate with the price tag.
Cheers,
Mattias
Just got mine. What a well designed tool. Practical to a fault and the quality is first rate. Money well spent.