center finders which is better

[duckkisser]

http://www.packardwoodworks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=packard&Category_Code=meas-nova10

this seems realy handy to use in the shop

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bullzeye-Woodturners-Center-Finder/dp/B004TK0JOO/ref=sr_1_1?s=power-hand-tools&ie=UTF8&qid=1338754775&sr=1-1

then again for a uneven forms this looks realy use full

how usefull is the bullzeye center finder? is it something i wont use?

[fransikaner]

I'm not going to be any help here. Both of those tools look like they came out of Game of Thrones.

[sbarton22]

Fransikaner---that was funny.

Duck-- 2 different tools for 2 different jobs. The circle job is to lay out a circle for rough cutting, say on a bandsaw. I often use it to see the largest blank I can cut out the piece. Yes, there are other ways to do it, but this one lets you see the whole piece. You hold the center with an awl and trace your circle. You could even make many circles on your piece and rough them out.

The red number is totally different. The "center finder" component of that tool is to jamb some piece of wood, relatively square or cylindrical, into the crotch of the 90 degree ridge. You trace a line, rotate 90 degrees, rinse and repeat. A dowel might take 2-3 marks to find the center (where your lines intersect). A square will take 2, but beware that it must be square. If not, you will need all 4 lines to locate the center. If it is rectangular, you will need to draw a line that connects the 2 intersections and find the middle of that.

I use the red one to find centers of pen blanks...especially blanks that don't have a lot of waste...say 5/8" or less square.

The red one seems to also have a bunch of little handy bits. Can't really say how much you would use any of that stuff. I have a transparent yellow version of this one and it only has the 90 degree ridge one side and a 60 degree ridge on the other. I never need it for much more than center finding.

hope it helps.

[fransikaner]

Thanks for bailing me out!