Digital Angle Gauge?

[bywc]

Ok so today I did one of those impulse buy type of things and purchased a Digital Angle Gauge I giggled my way home all excited about the new toy went into the shop decided to see how close I got my blade by using a engineering square on the table saw to 90 well I guess I did alright because it was 90.01 so no point in trying to get rid of that .01 as I have never noticed any issues with it the way it is currently set.

I guess that's when the impulse high wore off and now im left standing there with this shiny cube with digit numbers on it going hmmmm now what to do with this thing so I place it back into the case and stick it on the shelf with the other "Why did I buy this when Ill probably only use it once a year if that" items. I guess if I only had one saw and had to keep switching between 45 and 90 on a daily basis it would become useful.

So now im wondering if anyone else who has one of these has thought the same thing or if they have found other uses for which is wasn't designed but it works great for it?

I guess what im thinking is Should I leave it on my shelf collecting dust or go return it and buy something else that I would get more use out of

[Vic]

Paul, I have the Wixey one and use it ALL the time. It sits on the right side of the fence and when I need to change the angle, it's there.

[Richard Link]

Ok so today I did one of those impulse buy type of things and purchased a Digital Angle Gauge I giggled my way home all excited about the new toy went into the shop decided to see how close I got my blade by using a engineering square on the table saw to 90 well I guess I did alright because it was 90.01 so no point in trying to get rid of that .01 as I have never noticed any issues with it the way it is currently set.

I guess that's when the impulse high wore off and now im left standing there with this shiny cube with digit numbers on it going hmmmm now what to do with this thing so I place it back into the case and stick it on the shelf with the other "Why did I buy this when Ill probably only use it once a year if that" items. I guess if I only had one saw and had to keep switching between 45 and 90 on a daily basis it would become useful.

So now im wondering if anyone else who has one of these has thought the same thing or if they have found other uses for which is wasn't designed but it works great for it?

I guess what im thinking is Should I leave it on my shelf collecting dust or go return it and buy something else that I would get more use out of

+1 to Vic. I love my little angle gauge. Its great for setting the angle of the table on the bandsaw and the spindle sander which don't have very accurate detents. Mine tends to burn through batteries a bit, though, so make sure its off when you don't need it.

R

[Vic]

+1 to Vic. I love my little angle gauge. Its great for setting the angle of the table on the bandsaw and the spindle sander which don't have very accurate detents. Mine tends to burn through batteries a bit, though, so make sure its off when you don't need it.

R

Mine does too, Robo. I keep extra 2032s in the drawer.

[Rutabagared]

I use mine a lot too - especially on my jointer fence. The detent is sloppy, making the 90 unreliable.

Joe

[Jim_WoodWarden]

Ok so today I did one of those impulse buy type of things and purchased a Digital Angle Gauge I giggled my way home all excited about the new toy went into the shop decided to see how close I got my blade by using a engineering square on the table saw to 90 well I guess I did alright because it was 90.01 so no point in trying to get rid of that .01 as I have never noticed any issues with it the way it is currently set.

I guess that's when the impulse high wore off and now im left standing there with this shiny cube with digit numbers on it going hmmmm now what to do with this thing so I place it back into the case and stick it on the shelf with the other "Why did I buy this when Ill probably only use it once a year if that" items. I guess if I only had one saw and had to keep switching between 45 and 90 on a daily basis it would become useful.

So now im wondering if anyone else who has one of these has thought the same thing or if they have found other uses for which is wasn't designed but it works great for it?

I guess what im thinking is Should I leave it on my shelf collecting dust or go return it and buy something else that I would get more use out of

Paul,

I use my Wixey all the time. The only complaint I have with it is it does not have a good lock on it to hold the angle of the arms solid. Otherwise I use it a lot. Not so much for 90 degrees as I have engineering squares for that - but I use it a lot for setting other angles on my miter gauge and table blade angles on the band saw, table saw etc.

Incidentally it helped me discover why I had slight gaping on miter joints. I was shocked to find that on my top of the line Incra mite gauge that it is off on its 45 degree stop by about .7 degrees (may not sound like a lot but it does cause some gaping in joining miters). The 0 degree stop is right on (the position for 90 to the blade), but then that's the one you use when you initially calibrate the gauge to your blade during assembly and setup so it should be dead on.

As for other digital gauges I use and like a lot - the Wixey height gauge is really good at setting blade height and bit height very precisely. I've found it more useful then brass bar setup gauges or metal plate style gauges especially if trying to set a depth that needs to be a little shy or over a fractional value to make for a tight joint fit when i am cutting the second part of a joint and I want a tight fit with what's already cut.

For my calipers I also have Wixey - only reason is for the decimal and fractional display and there are other brands that do that and I have no particular reason to recommend the Wixey over the others. The one very smart design choice Wixey made is all their digital devices take the same size battery and all of them come with a spare battery. So right now I have three spare batteries (that live in the caliper case), but in the future when I have burned through the spares and have batteries in all three devices when one dies and I am in middle of a project I can swap still live batteries between devices instead of dropping what I am doing to run to store for a battery. Given that finding a store that carries the right size disc style batteries can be difficult its nice they are all the same.

Jim

[jab73180]

i have the beall tool version of that. i can tell you their customer service is second to none. i dont use mine to often, but it works well for my table saw, chop saw and even getting my miter gauge right on. i put the miter gauge on the edge of my table saw table, set the beall to 0 degrees and stick the gauge to the bar hanging down and dial it right in. works well, how do you guys do it?

[Roger T]

i have the beall tool version of that. i can tell you their customer service is second to none. i dont use mine to often, but it works well for my table saw, chop saw and even getting my miter gauge right on. i put the miter gauge on the edge of my table saw table, set the beall to 0 degrees and stick the gauge to the bar hanging down and dial it right in. works well, how do you guys do it?

You ever have one of those AHA moments? For the life of me while reading this thread, I could not get my head around using a Wixey to set a Mitre Gauge. That is until I read this post. Brilliant I say, Brilliant!!

Roger

[samhell]

I use mine for all kinds of things. A few days ago I used it to set the camber on my car! Useful little thing.

[tim0625]

Alright Jim....you flushed me out! You is a Wixey man! Please tell me (us?) about Wixey as far as setting "the blade height". I don't own any of the Wixey products... yet... but mannnnn I love a gadget that makes life easier! Now, I definitely want to check my Incra miter gauge also but I'm a little confused on how and what's used to set blade height. Thanks