Woodpeckers SkillSquare - Carpenters Square for Rafter, Construction, Woodworking

Woodpeckers was established in 1988, with a steadfast focus on woodworking tools. Starting with a few routers, the company has grown into a full-fledged manufacturer of router lifts, router fences, measuring & layout tools, and a wide range of useful clamping accessories. Woodpeckers takes pride in the fact that all its tools are truly made in the U.S.A., as the company handles its own machining, engraving, assembly, and packing processes.

For woodworkers who demand precision, even on a construction site, Woodpeckers offers the SkillSquare Job Site (JS) models. Building upon the success of last year's SkillSquare OneTIME Tool launch, the new SkillSquares merge the features of a traditional carpenter's square with Woodpeckers' signature precision-machined one-piece stainless steel blades and separately machined beams.

The SkillSquares are now a permanent product line, available in four distinct models that are equally at home in the cabinet shop or on the job site. The key difference between the new "Job Site" and the original SkillSquares lies in the material used for the beam. The Job Site beams are made from incredibly tough solid phenolic, making them ideal for the rough and tumble conditions on most construction sites, while the original models feature Woodpeckers' familiar red anodized aluminum beam, optimized for the furniture and cabinet shop.

Woodpeckers has engineered the SkillSquare blades with precision, laser-cutting them from 1/16" stainless steel sheet and machining the edges on CNC mills to a tolerance of .0085°. This one-third reduction in thickness compared to other carpenter's squares helps minimize parallax viewing error, allowing for more accurate measurements and transferring them to the material more precisely. The laser-engraved scale is graduated in sixteenths, not eighths, ensuring crisp, dark, and easy-to-read markings that will never wear off.

The SkillSquares feature two sets of scribing guides – large guides on quarter-inch centers up to 3" for construction work, and finer guides on eighth-inch centers along the entire blade. Each of the finer guides has two triangular notches, allowing users to mark with either a push or a pull motion, accommodating a wide variety of marking devices, from wooden and mechanical pencils to scratch awls and permanent markers.

Woodpeckers has also improved the performance of angle marking, with a sharp and well-defined pivot point on the SkillSquares, enabling more precise and repeatable rafter and angle marking. To further enhance this capability, the SkillSquares can be paired with Woodpeckers' new Stair Gauge Set.

The SkillSquares are available in two designs – standard and "XT". Both models share the same features, but the "XT" version adds a central core that extends beyond the cheeks of the beam, with a 6" scale engraved on both sides. This allows users to flip the SkillSquare XT around and securely hook the extended scale on the edge of the stock, enabling accurate marking even when working well away from the ends of the board.

All four SkillSquare models – SkillSquare, SkillSquare XT, SkillSquare JS, and SkillSquare XTJS – are available individually or in pairs, and each set includes a wall-mountable Rack-It for convenient storage and easy accessibility.

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