Magnet

Managed to sort of catch up with my blog reading again and found Chris Schwarz busy alienating the woodworking widows of the world by talking up another tool. (See WivesAgainstSchwarz.com...) Now as it happens the Bevel Setter I already have (in metric, if you care) and like it quite a bit. I'd probably like it even more if the tool gods would take pity and let me have some more time to use it. However, not having had Chris to tell me earlier that it's good (and no doubt increasing sales ten-fold as he does so) I probably wouldn't have got it if it weren't for already owning, and finding inordinately useful, a Bevel Boss from Sutherland Tool (thanks to another Chris and an insaitable desire to show off all the possible ways to make a dado without using a dado head in a tablesaur - but that's another story). Anyway, the BB is a bit beefier than the Veritas, but accurately lining up your bevel with the appropriate line can exercise one somewhat. In fact I'd dabbled with thinking of ways to give it a fence, so the Veritas version was something of an answer to a prayer. If only Veritas'd get around the idea of including a 1:7 dovetail angle as well as 1:6 & 1:8 it'd be practically perfect in every way. Oh, except the full 12" rule on the reverse of the BB is rather handy. Ah, you need both, right...?

Anyway, I was reading "the underside of the fence has a couple little grippy feet that make the fence stick to the steel plate like a magnet" and couldn't help spluttering whatchoo talkin' about, Willis? They are magnets, right? Wrong. Just as well I checked before exposing myself to ridicule on a public blog.

Okay, so perhaps that's not quite accurate. How about: Exposing myself to public ridicule on a public blog other than my own...

I feel slightly let down. The Lee Valley love affair with the rare earth magnet is so enduring I was utterly convinced that's what they were. Huh. Still, anybody want to bet against them having tried it with magnets first...?