T-Square for layout, resizing material and drawing

[marmak3261]

I’ve been wanting to make a T-Square so that I can resize the sheets of chemcast that I have. I’ve been using my framing square, but it isn’t quite long enough for the acrylic I have. [Right Click and download. The image is an SVG.] [Edit: fixed the numbers. Hard to think through the reverse.]

And metric for the enlightened folks on the forum by popular request. Thanks to @dan_berry whose OpenScad makes perfect tick marks! [Edited: long arm numbers now in reverse as that is meant to be printed on back and laid over top cross bar.]

I used CA glue for the assembly. We’ll see how it holds. I haven’t gotten solvent glue yet nor made my own. The yellow square is an engraving so that the perpendicular arm slots in. Very nice and exact fit with no wiggle just as is. The perpendicular arm is printed on the back so that the numbers and ticks lie on the surface and avoids paralax. The horizontal beam is on the surface as that will be flush to the surface.

An additional image of bed placement. This is a good file to understand the limits of the useable area for cutting versus engraving. The cutting will work and the engraving will work, but you have to make sure that the image of the long arm is placed correctly so the engraving part doesn’t go into the no go zone for engraving. I think I have it positioned accurately on the artboard. If the engraving of the long arm is not getting highlighted, nudge it over. It should fit.

Edit: Note that there is a box around the center engraving on the cross member. That is supposed to be scored, not cut. That is to clean up the edge of the engraving for a good 90 degree glue up of the long leg.

[jbmanning5]

Nice!!

Did you mean to include the file? Just wondering - free laser designs category.

[marmak3261]

Right click on the image. It’s an SVG.

[jbmanning5]

Don’t mind me… lol

Still not an ingrained thing to right-click and save SVGs.

[markevans36301]

You are quickly becoming the measuring device guy here. Very nice.

Everyone’s browser if a bit different and not everyone catches on to the whole right click thing so you might want to include things like this in a zip as well as the SVG.

[cynd11]

A very thoughtful, functional, and beautiful design! I assume you used 1/4" acrylic for this?

[darkdesign]

Thank you! I want to make this. However. I’ll need to convert it to mm and cm.

[johnwills]

Excellent! I already have a number of similar measuring and marking devices but I’m sure I’ll come up with some particle adaptation of this. Thanks for sharing!

[curtis]

I really like what you’ve done here. Although I haven’t yet receive my GF to fully understand the interrelation between the GF and t-square, there is nothing better than practical measuring tools. I’ll be looking into a metric conversion (even though all around me is not).

[marmak3261]

Having a framing square and a T-square helps when re-dimensioning larger sheets of material like cardboard, plywood or acrylic to fit in the bed or make a jig. Starting with square sides just makes it all around easier for registration of parts on material and addressing the usable bed area.

[marmak3261]

I did metric for your use. I uploaded in the top post a metric file.

[curtis]

Sweet, thanks a bunch

[marmak3261]

Make sure you use the latest version. I had to fix the numbers and a couple other things. Let me know what else is wrong.

[darkdesign]

Thanks!

[davidandmaraya]

Yeah, remind me never get into a measuring contest with him.

[dan_berry]

I’m just glad the OpenSCAD code continues to be helpful in multiple ways for you! Love the T-Square.

[hansena]

That is great, you’re amazing! I can’t wait to make one!
I know it seems weird, but this is the kind of stuff I get excited about

[morganstanfield]

Great design, and so useful. Thanks so much for yet another great contribution to the community!

[lcronkite]

I just Forged the T-Square and I don’t think it came out as it was supposed to.
I downloaded the file and opened it in Inkscape and sent to the GF.
What came out doesn’t look like the one pictured. The long arm seems OK but the short arm came out in three pieces. The center section was engraved to a thickness of .199 and then cut away from the left and right sections.

Here is a screen shot of the GFUI

[marmak3261]

Sorry about that. The center rectangle is meant to be scored, not cut, to get a clean edge around the engraving where the glue goes. I didn’t say that in the original post. You can also ignore that operation as I don’t think it makes that much of a difference.

That’s one of the issues with the default vector cut/score. You can’t differentiate those operations in the design file at this time so you have to remember to change the default cut to a score.