Franklin-Titebond Shop-Made Wooden Try Square: Part 2

While that sapele handle is drying, I've got a walnut handle that I started earlier that we can work with. So what I have done so far is just a little bit of sanding, get those edges nice and flush. I put a little bit of a curve on the bottom here. We can do some sanding there. Knock the corners off, so this is more comfortable to hold in your hand, and get that nicely finished sanded. Now here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna take our blade, which is, of course, the same thickness as that center ply, insert that, and leave about a quarter inch projecting past the handle, just like that and get that glued in place with a couple of steps along the way. Let me talk about those other steps before we have glue in here. We wanna make sure these come together nice and perpendicularly. So in order to make that happen, we're gonna put everything together with this block. Here's the way I made this. First thing was long grain of my material up against a fence. I cut a perfect 90 degree end onto a piece. Then I cut it at 45 degrees in order to get a triangle. From that, I cut a relief and a relief, that way, when this goes like this, I can put a clamp on and put a clamp on, and by clamping that into that inside corner, if you've cut this at a perfect 90, this'll be at a perfect 90. Now, because all of that's gonna take a little bit to do, a little time, we wanna use a glue for this that provides us some more working time. This glue is also a waterproof glue. And of course for a shop square like this, I'm not worried about waterproof, but it's got a longer assembly time than the glue I use previously. So that glue is gonna go inside the joint giving us more time to get that clamping block in there and work with that. Gonna do a little rounding here on the end of my blade, 'cause it's easier to get to now than it will be when it's glued into the handle. All right, I think we're set. There's a lot of surface area inside here, so once that glue grabs it's gonna be very, very strong. All right, now in goes to the blade. And that's why we have wax paper. Then our clamping block. This part's just a little bit tricky to do. Good time to, sort of, wish you had another pair of hands. That's a good example of why we want a glue that's got a little more open time, 'cause of just the time it takes to mess with the block here and get this just right. Yeah, just a little bit of snugicity on that first one, and then life gets easier. What that did is, it drew it closed here, then bringing this clamp this way, I'll get a little more pressure on that, that draws it close against the handle. And then our last step, we'll clamp it here to make sure we have a good bond in that joint. I'm gonna let that glue dry to a point where it's a little bit rubbery, and then slice that off to clean it up. Next step will be to put in our pins, and then apply a little bit of finish. Gonna let that glue dry and then I'll come back and show you how to get those pins installed. Let me talk you through the whole layout and what I did there. First thing is you've got to measure that brazing rod and make sure that, of course, you're drilling a hole that's the right size. In my case, it was eighth inch, a perfect eighth inch. So I drilled an eighth inch hole. What I did then is I created a square based on the size of the handle not the size of the blade. So this is inch and a half by inch and a half. Drew diagonals. Then I measured three eights in from each corner and drilled those holes so that they go all the way through. Now, when we put the pins in we wanna make sure that they're gonna stay put. So remember we had braided that ride earlier? We roughed it up with some sandpaper. I'm gonna put a drop a CA glue on the hole, then drive the pin into that. That'll make sure it stays forever locked in place. Drop the glue in the hole. And then we've got a pointy end on this from the work we did earlier. And notice I've got a piece of waste wood here. That will let me drive all the way through, like that, and not worry about putting that pin into my bench. So we'll snip that off after the fact. Now, realistically, if you wanna skip this pin step, you know, if you can't find brazing rod or for whatever reason, there's plenty of strength in that glue joint. But they sure do look cool. They make a nice accent if you can add them to your project. All right, now go back to your side cutters, once that CA glue dries on there then snip those as close as you can, run a file over the top, in order to get those close to flush, and then you can finish them with sanding, 'cause it sands, that brass'll sand real easy. I'm gonna take care of those steps. We'll come back and look at finishing to see just how cool this baby looks under finish. And we're pretty close to wrapping up our try square. I've got my brass pins flushed up, sanded this down now with some nice, fine sandpaper. And this is a great way to do it to get those pins completely level with the surface of the handle. And it looks pretty darn good. And a great finish for this is just a little bit of oil. In this case I'm gonna use some linseed oil. Thinned it just a little bit with mineral spirits to help it soak in. It's gonna give us an opportunity to see just how cool that walnut handle's gonna look. Man! This takes care of making a shop-made try square. I'll tell you what, when you're prepping the material for this, you might as well prep to make a couple of these, 'cause as soon as your woodworking pals see yours, they're gonna want one too. So try this out, make a few in your shop. I'm sure that you're gonna really like it. Make sure that you're using the right glue and the right spot so that it's easy to put together. And once it's together, it stays together.