Think of the Folding Saddle Squares as straightedges that happen to have a hinge right in the middle…because that’s exactly how we make them. The edges are milled after final assembly. That’s right. After the parts are machined, anodized, laser engraved and fully assembled, they head back out to the machine shop where both edges get one more pass on the CNC mill, cutting both halves perfectly in plane with each other. They will stay in plane, too, because the hinge is tensioned to eliminate lateral play while still allowing silky smooth angle adjustment. You get a precision straightedege that will wrap itself around a corner.

Tenons are perfect examples of layouts that require precise registration of lines on edges and faces of your stock. With just two placements of the square (instead of 4), it’s much easier to mark the shoulder line all the way around the board. In the same way, having the Folding Saddle Square wrap along the end and down the edge saves you time and effort when laying out the cheek cuts of your tenons. Another prime example where face and edge alignment are crucial is cross-dowel joinery. The bolt hole and the cross-dowel hole must intersect precisely or the threads won’t line up. The Folding Saddle Square gives you that perfect alignment automatically. So far, we’ve looked at square corners…but the Folding Saddle Square works just
as well on angles larger than 90°. Lay out spline locations on hexagonal and octagonal boxes. Lay out angled bridle joints in table and chair construction. Carry layout lines
around corners in multi-sided rooms. Anywhere you need to mark the same.