Hello,
The best beech pin gauge ever made was made by Stanley and for some reason dropped from production. It is not always about what is useful or not, that means some tools are no longer produced. No doubt the wheel gauge made by Stanley was very effective, as they are now, just not well enough subscribed to. I'm glad that there are new makers of tools that continue to reintroduce older tools that are no longer made by their original manufacturers.
The wooden gauge I'm talking about, incidentally, had logically enough, the clamping screw act across the diagonal of the shaft, so it never suffered from seasonal movement problems,, the head always looked without any wobble and always square to the shaft, and consequently, the pin was also set into the diagonal, so it could easily be seen in use. It was such a simple and effective arrangement I cannot imagine why it was discontinued, other than Stanleys self destructive policy on making poorer and poorer tools. I saw a used one the other day on auction for 26 pounds with a couple of days still to go! Clearly some will pay for effective tools, even simple wooden ones. I think I might make a couple of nice ones like these, as sadly the one I owned went walkies. I'll sharpen the pins elliptically with a flat, though, so they cut across the grain. No one can convince me that a conical pin shape is a good one for cutting lines timber.
Mike.
