hey everybody adam savage here in my cave with a tool tip for what feels like a
somewhat esoteric tool it took me a while to discover how useful crazy useful it actually
is uh and also a recommendation of where you can obtain a truly magnificent one the tool
i'm going to describe is called an angle finder now the most common angle we use in any shop
is a 90 degree angle a perpendicular angle and you should have a selection of squares
big and small if you are a maker of things to make these 90 degree markings and
there are tons and tons and tons of different uh angle finding squares and rulers there's
there's combination squares like this there are speed squares for building houses
and these beautiful old craftsman squares which you can pick up for a song at antiques
malls and thrift stores and ebay and even etsy sometimes but what if you have an angle
uh that you don't know what it is but you want to match it so let's just say that this
staking block i've got which is hexagonal let's say i don't know what that angle is
but i i want to transfer that angle to something else well that's where an angle finder comes in
this is an angle finder it is a simple piece of plastic or wood as the base and a fin of steel
as its business end and what you do it's got this slot so you can move it around and it allows you
to basically bring something that's got an angle on it that you want to match up to the tool
like that you tighten the tool now you have that angle now you can transfer that angle if you want
to something else and in carpentry this is a completely critical tool to have
it is also a relatively inexpensive tool this is probably well under 20 dollars if not half of that
and we'll include some links in the comments below for where you can purchase these and everybody
who is a maker of any stripe should have one of these in their shop i just go out and get
one and add it to your kit if you don't have it for those of you who might be more discerning
you don't have to go to a brand new store to buy a new angle finder because
well hell's bells margaret some of them might be 100 years old and still completely functional
and that's where angulas comes in this is one of my favorite antique tools i just love this
this is a cast steel uh angle finder and it's called the angulus
angulus every time i pick it up i it's kind of required that i say angulus i literally have
been doing that for 20 plus years ah yeah look at that beautiful piece of engineering
right this one instead of having a tightening nut up here has a tightening nut back here
that allows the fin to be manipulated and then secured into position and once it's rigid it's
very bloody rigid and i paid about as much for this as i did for this i paid as much for this
beautiful piece of work as i did for this cheap stamped injection molded thing now i recommend
that everyone immediately go out and buy one of these if you don't have one of these in your shop
you should it will save your ass someday meanwhile why don't you go looking for a much more beautiful
version of it because these are not that expensive yeah i'm a big recommender of buying antique
versions of great tools these squares these craftsman squares again not super expensive
and honestly a good tool that you want to use is a tool that you're going to use and that makes it
have more utility in the shop that was a quick and dirty tool tip thank you guys
for joining me for this i hope that it was instructive and if you've got a tool
that you know about that not many people other do i'd love to hear about it see you next time