Honest John
Established Member
So last Friday I suffered a tragic loss when when I emptied the rubbish bin in my workshop into the big grey wheelie bin for collection. The night before I noticed the orange plastic handle of a screw driver lying on the top of the bin, and recovered it. It had clearly rolled off my bandsaw table and landed in the bin. Nothing else was evident. On the Friday night after the bin men had been I became aware that my 6 inch Starrett was not to be found anywhere. I had been using it the day before. Oh dear I thought, or words to that effect. Clearly the only answer is that this had taken the same route as the screwdriver, but not been recovered. (hammer) I had some birthday gift vouchers for Axminster, and although they don’t stock Starrett, they now keep an almost identical (looking) model under their “Axminster Precission” label. I drove off to the Warrington store. I took a piece of plywood a checked straight edge on it to check them out. There were three on the shelf. 2 of them were way out of square and the last one was only very slightly out. The locking screws were awful nasty feel to them. I put them all back. On the “Axminster Precission” stand there was a 12 inch square on display. The locking screw would not lock the ruler tight so I didn’t check that one for square, there was no point. Out of interest I checked one of those new posh American jobbies that they have started to sell. It was spot on but at £61 it should be. I noticed that they sold the Bahco brand at about a tenner, and I couldn’t resist checking it. It was absolutely spot on on both sides of the blade. I removed the blade and refitted it the other way round. The locking screw was superb and locked the ruler with no movement at all. Once again both sides of the blade were perfectly square. With an aluminium stock I don’t really see this as a lifetime tool, but at this level of repeatable accuracy for a tenner I just had to have it. The Starrett that I have lost was not as accurate as this Bahco straight out of the box but only took a few minutes to fettle. I don’t know if I was just lucky with this one or if all Bahco are like that. The point of this rambling post is to advise of my huge dissapointment in the Axminster Precission brand. It’s not difficult to make a combination square true, but I don’t think I should have to do it. Especially when it is marketed as a part of a Precission range.. Rant over.!
