Length of winding sticks

[Tony Wilkins]

I'm finally getting around to making winding sticks for myself. I had a piece of straight grained walnut I thought it would be great. However, it's only 12 inches long. Is that long enough for general woodworking? If not, how long?

[Jim Koepke]

How wide is the widest piece you will want to check?

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Mine are 36" I use them on everything that is larger than what I can check on my reference surface.

[Frederick Skelly]

I use the ones LV sells (aluminum) - they are 18" long.

[Tony Wilkins]

How wide is the widest piece you will want to check?

jtk

Not sure, probably wider than 12".

i thought about doing really long ones like Brian but wasn't sure that it wouldn't be unwieldy on smaller items.

[Mike Henderson]

Mine are about 24" and I haven't needed longer.

Mike

[Tony Wilkins]

Follow on question. What size base do you guys find stable?

also, depending on what wood I use - is there any reason they couldn't be painted?

[Patrick Chase]

I'm finally getting around to making winding sticks for myself. I had a piece of straight grained walnut I thought it would be great. However, it's only 12 inches long. Is that long enough for general woodworking? If not, how long?

IMO there are two considerations:

- As others have pointed out, they need to be as wide as long as the width of whatever you're measuring, or any cup in the piece will cause you to mis-estimate wind.

- Accuracy. The human eye has a best case resolution of about 1 arc-second, measured from the eye to whatever you're viewing. Assuming the remote stick is about 4' away, this means that you'll be able to estimate the far stick's projection above the near stick to within about 14 mils. The shorter the stick, the more of an angular error that will represent.

We're talking about really small errors here though...
-

[Kees Heiden]

Longer is better, a longer one multiplies the errors in the board. A winding stick just as long as your boards are wide would tell you not much more then looking at the board itself. Allthough the winding sticks do make it easier then piering over the boards surface. 12" sounds very short to me. Mine are about twice that. Much longer and it becomes unwieldy on the bench.

[john zulu]

A good question.

To short you can't view the twist.
Too long it will not balance on narrow boards.
I went with 24". Has served me very well till to date.

[Warren Mickley]

Follow on question. What size base do you guys find stable?

also, depending on what wood I use - is there any reason they couldn't be painted?

I would not paint the sticks; you may want to true them up at some later date. My sticks are 3/8 thick.

I have used the same 16 inch mahogany winding sticks since 1978. I would not want sticks very much longer. If you are truing wood by hand, you want to be using the sticks constantly so you want something that is easy to place on the work and put to the side. Long sticks are unhandy for balancing on the edge of a board.

12 inches is short, but I would rather use 12 inch sticks than 36 inch sticks. I would say go ahead and make the 12 inch sticks; you might find something that you would want to do differently on a more permanent set. The worse case is that you have two 12 inch straight edges, which are handy in themselves.

[Bill Houghton]

My cheap aluminum levels from yard sales, vials knocked out so I don't mistake them for actual levels, are two feet long.

[Tony Wilkins]

I would not paint the sticks; you may want to true them up at some later date. My sticks are 3/8 thick.

I have used the same 16 inch mahogany winding sticks since 1978. I would not want sticks very much longer. If you are truing wood by hand, you want to be using the sticks constantly so you want something that is easy to place on the work and put to the side. Long sticks are unhandy for balancing on the edge of a board.

12 inches is short, but I would rather use 12 inch sticks than 36 inch sticks. I would say go ahead and make the 12 inch sticks; you might find something that you would want to do differently on a more permanent set. The worse case is that you have two 12 inch straight edges, which are handy in themselves.

Thanks all for the input. I think I may go ahead with the 12" ones since I have the billet 5 squared and all I need to do is rip it and do an inlay strip or 'targets'. It would be a good thing to see what I like and not in using them. I have some beech to make longer ones and/or a 3' straight edge.

[Tony Wilkins]

Now for longer ones - I have some Beech and some walnut left overs that that I can use. I have 8/4 in the walnut and 4/4 in both. Which would you use and why?

[Jim Koepke]

I would rip the 4/4 in half leaving it about 3/8 +/- when finished. Either beach with walnut trim or walnut with beach trim.

jtk

[Tony Wilkins]

Just ripped 27" of beech off of a wider board. I'm broken and need to take a break after that lol. Times like this I wish my bandsaw was put together (but not enough to take the time to do it). I'll gauge 1/4" off opposite sides and mark and cut the diagonal off that a là Paul Sellers video later.

need to decide whether to make a full length inlay or the inset target inlays on each side. I think the two smaller pieces would be easier. I also had a bookmark for one that had a half moon cutout on each end that looked promising.

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

I will soon be making some winding sticks too, I have som bone from a Giraf for the white markers, its almost completely white :)

[Bill Houghton]

I will soon be making some winding sticks too, I have som bone from a Giraf for the white markers, its almost completely white :)
Did you trap the giraffe there in Denmark? :D

[Daniel Rode]

The thing to remember about winding sticks is that they are dead simple. 2 boards with parallel edges is all that is required. They don't even need to match in height.

I have a 18" set I made from walnut with maple inlay on the corners of the rear stick. The maple makes it super easy to see. 18" is a good fit for me because my bench is small and up against the wall. For 6"-8" wide stock, they're perfect but they are a little short for wider stock. I have a 24" set on my to-do list.

I'm not sure how I got along without winding sticks.

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

Did you trap the giraffe there in Denmark? :D

No, I got it from the Danish brewery Albani, where they make the Giraf Beer. The leg bones are some of the few parts too big for making the beer, so they waste it.

331622

[Tony Wilkins]

Not sure I've ever seen beer made out of giraffe before. I bet the squeezing machine is rather tall!

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I have long thought that I should have two or maybe even three sets of different lengths. I figured 12", 24", and 36" (or something like that).

[Jim Davis]

I wouldn't devote shop space to a dedicated pair of winding sticks. All that is needed is parallelism and straightness. There is always something available, such as the levels mentioned above. No need to keep junker levels for this though. Good ones work perfectly well. So do off-cuts and other scraps.

[Zach Dillinger]

The simplicity of winding sticks is not representative of their importance in the hand tool shop. I think making a pair is a great exercise, and making them a bit fancy is just fine. My own pair is made from walnut, the back stick has a piece of extremely curly maple inlaid into it to provide contrast. I have thought about making a longer pair for checking assemblies, as things like chairs can make them tough to balance.

[Derek Cohen]

You know, I did not know the length of my winding sticks. They just seemed a useful length for the pieces I flatten. I've just measured them - 24" inches.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Bill Houghton]

I wouldn't devote shop space to a dedicated pair of winding sticks. All that is needed is parallelism and straightness. There is always something available, such as the levels mentioned above. No need to keep junker levels for this though. Good ones work perfectly well. So do off-cuts and other scraps.

That's true. I chose to spend $2 on a couple of junker levels because I had visions of my good Sands two foot level falling off the edge of a board and hitting the floor. With the junker levels, I don't worry as much.