Combination Square

[Mike Goetzke]

I saw a nice vintage Craftsman combination square set. Maybe because I'm getting old it looked beautiful. Thing strange about it was one side of the scale is graduated in 10's of an inch. Must have been Imperial scale answer to metric. Was this common years ago? Would it be a pain to work with?

I already have a Starrett that I bought years ago but still have an itch for this - must have the tool collector disease.

[attachimg=1]

 

[FestitaMakool]

Nothing wrong about having an itch for nice hand tools, is there?
I have really no idea if 10th graduation was usual, but if I were to use both metric and imperial, I’d crave to get what you have here. I have recalled seeing similar, but on a newer tool.
It could well have been something targeted towards markets that were metric, but occasionally used imperial.

 

[rvieceli]

Machinists use tenths and hundredths.

Ron

 

[Jeff Zanin]

Tenths and hundredths were also used in aviation.

 

[Michael Kellough]

Tenths and hundredths were also used in aviation.

That is my preferred scale when working from my own cad plans. I try to eliminate conversion.

 

[gunnyr]

Framing squares are also available in tenths, it makes the math easier to compute rise and run!

 

[Cheese]

Several engineering firms I worked for used tenths & hundredths.

Starrett still uses the nomenclature "Aircraft Quick-Reading 50ths and 100ths"

Starrett currently manufactures over 40 different steel rules or combination square blades that are graduated in 10ths, 50ths or 100ths.