Winding sticks tolerances

[Haitham Jaber]

I recently bought a pair of LeeValley aluminum winding sticks. I can already hear people saying, you could have made them yourself, but the temptation of having something stable was too high.
When I received them, they had a deviation from straightness of 0.07mm (0.0025") over 18 inches on the bottom surface, the one that touches the lumber.
I contacted LeeValley and they kindly replaced them. Smoothest customer service.
Anyway, they told me that my winding sticks were far inside their factory standard tolerances.
Their reference tolerances for aluminum winding sticks are, as the kind employee told me: 0.0125”/ foot of length which is slightly under 1/64” (1/3 of a millimiter) and a twist of 0.5º/ foot of length.
I thought they meant 0.00125 but they actually meant what they told above.

For me 1/3 of a millimiter is not even thinkable. Unworkable. But they told me that
for the purpose it's ok because they are not straightedges.

What do you think? Am I wrong? I'm still at the start of the learning curve so I may miss something.

Cheers,
Haisam

[Eric Brown]

I recently bought a pair of LeeValley aluminum winding sticks. I can already hear people saying, you could have made them yourself, but the temptation of having something stable was too high.
When I received them, they had a deviation from straightness of 0.07mm (0.0025") over 18 inches on the bottom surface, the one that touches the lumber.
I contacted LeeValley and they kindly replaced them. Smoothest customer service.
Anyway, they told me that my winding sticks were far inside their factory standard tolerances.
Their reference tolerances for aluminum winding sticks are, as the kind employee told me: 0.0125”/ foot of length which is slightly under 1/64” (1/3 of a millimiter) and a twist of 0.5º/ foot of length.
I thought they meant 0.00125 but they actually meant what they told above.

For me 1/3 of a millimiter is not even thinkable. Unworkable. But they told me that
for the purpose it's ok because they are not straightedges.

What do you think? Am I wrong? I'm still at the start of the learning curve so I may miss something.

Cheers,
Haisam

Probably just as important are the width of the board, the lighting, and your eyesight.

[Richard Coers]

If you can see closer than .0025" twist in a board using those winding sticks, you are better than most laser systems. You are not measuring flatness of the stock. If you can hold your head within .0025", I would like to see your measurable result in a video. We aren't making titanium rocket parts here.

[Tom M King]

Granite surface plates have better tolerances than that.

[Jim Koepke]

I recently bought a pair of LeeValley aluminum winding sticks. I can already hear people saying, you could have made them yourself, but the temptation of having something stable was too high.

Winding sticks, well made, from decent material like maple will be fairly stable. What is even more important is the skill building encountered when making one's own shop tools.

Here is the making of mine > https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?290331

A Lost Arts Press book, Euclid's Door, also describes a way to make a straight edge without the "making three edges to compare" as was used in making my winding sticks.

jtk

[Warren Mickley]

I made a pair of winding sticks from dense mahogany 45 years ago. As of this evening one can see no light coming through when the two bottom edges are held together.

Many forget that winding sticks accentuate any wind irregularity in the timber. For example when the sticks are placed on the edge of a board 1 inch thick, .002 inches of wind become .036 when you are sighting. So the sticks are quite helpful in getting two boards to mate nicely when joining them.

I think sloppy sticks would be frustrating to use; you might get a good reading off the winding sticks, then find when you laid the boards together that there was indeed some wind in the joint. And when you have an error on both boards, the error compounds. You can make a good joint without winding sticks by trial and error, but the winding sticks make the process easier and faster.

[Haitham Jaber]

I'm perfectly aware how important is building your own tools. And it's also a joy.

@Warren Mickley, that's what I usually do, if the board is smaller than my workbench, I correct the wind and then
check if it rocks on the surface and I do it until 0.001" cannot fit in. I'm perfectly aware that within a couple of hours it
will move but that's my procedure. Testing it against a reference surface is also described in "The joiner and cabinet-maker".
Even though we are not building titanium rockets, I think that a good start with next to zero errors could help not multiply those errors until noticeble deviations from straightness and flatness. Is also correct what you mention, that 2 thousands will
be exagerated at the extremes. That's just my opinion. I also agree that good lighting and eyesight are really important things with winding sticks, and also keeping your head steady while you move from one extreme to the other, without getting cervical pain.
Anyway for me 1/64 over 12" is huge.

[Jim Koepke]

For me 1/3 of a millimiter is not even thinkable. Unworkable. But they told me that
for the purpose it's ok because they are not straightedges.

When using winding sticks on a piece of lumber, you will not likely be able to notice a difference of 0.0125" at a distance over a foot or two. During my use of winding sticks, the close one is often flipped end for end just to make sure there isn't a piece of dirt or high spot throwing me off my game.

Though my fingers can likely feel the much smaller difference of 0.0025".

It is amazing by sight and touch we humans can likely make something very accurate compared to a mass machining process. A machinist supply shop in my area had a straight edge a few years ago for $70 +tax. At the time it was a bit rich for my wallet.

My shop made straight edges make me smile every time they are put to use.

505509

This is my first pair of winding sticks/straight edges. They are a bit over 24" if my memory is working.

jtk

[Haitham Jaber]

Thank you Jim for sharing your calm and experience

[Scott Winners]

Just for reality check, I use fiberglass levels from my local home store as winding sticks. One orange, one blue. When I see an error, some wind, in one configuration I like to switch and flip the sticks to see if the error is still there.

FWIW I am in a very space constrained shop, so any time a particular tool can do double duty I will take it and like it. In general, using one level from team blue and the other from team orange, I can re-arrange the winding stick/ level in any of the available permutations and see about the same wind in the board I am trying to flatten.

Certainly take your first level from team whatever with you when you shop for a level at team other.

Good luck and best wishes.

[Richard Coers]

I'm perfectly aware how important is building your own tools. And it's also a joy.

@Warren Mickley, that's what I usually do, if the board is smaller than my workbench, I correct the wind and then
check if it rocks on the surface and I do it until 0.001" cannot fit in. I'm perfectly aware that within a couple of hours it
will move but that's my procedure. Testing it against a reference surface is also described in "The joiner and cabinet-maker".
Even though we are not building titanium rockets, I think that a good start with next to zero errors could help not multiply those errors until noticeble deviations from straightness and flatness. Is also correct what you mention, that 2 thousands will
be exagerated at the extremes. That's just my opinion. I also agree that good lighting and eyesight are really important things with winding sticks, and also keeping your head steady while you move from one extreme to the other, without getting cervical pain.
Anyway for me 1/64 over 12" is huge.
That begs the question, just how accurate do you work when you make something? Less than .005"? Say you make a 6 board blanket chest with only hand tools, how flat is the lid and all the panels? Both when you finish working it and after the glue ups? Maybe I've been doing this all wrong for decades!

[Mel Fulks]

Sounds like you are only gonna be happy with the platinum winding sticks. Don’t forget to buy the EXTENDED warranty.

[Tom M King]

For architectural parts, just running some out of scrap when needed on the jointer and tablesaw are plenty good enough.

[Jim Koepke]

That begs the question, just how accurate do you work when you make something? Less than .005"? Say you make a 6 board blanket chest with only hand tools, how flat is the lid and all the panels? Both when you finish working it and after the glue ups? Maybe I've been doing this all wrong for decades!

This would depend on where in my life of woodworking we were talking about. Forty years ago when just starting, my measuring was done with a tape measure and 1/32" was my target. With all of my mistakes, one shelving unit had a dado off by ~3/4". The shelf was muscled into place and it worked, though not for storing marbles. :D

Eventually a change was made to using folding rules, story sticks and comparing pieces to each other instead of trying to hit a mark on a tape measure. My work was relying on making sure things were square and matched up instead of accurate to 0.001". Things seem to fit better when feeling for accuracy than measuring for accuracy.

jtk

[Jason Buresh]

I recently bought a pair of LeeValley aluminum winding sticks. I can already hear people saying, you could have made them yourself, but the temptation of having something stable was too high.
When I received them, they had a deviation from straightness of 0.07mm (0.0025") over 18 inches on the bottom surface, the one that touches the lumber.
I contacted LeeValley and they kindly replaced them. Smoothest customer service.
Anyway, they told me that my winding sticks were far inside their factory standard tolerances.
Their reference tolerances for aluminum winding sticks are, as the kind employee told me: 0.0125”/ foot of length which is slightly under 1/64” (1/3 of a millimiter) and a twist of 0.5º/ foot of length.
I thought they meant 0.00125 but they actually meant what they told above.

For me 1/3 of a millimiter is not even thinkable. Unworkable. But they told me that
for the purpose it's ok because they are not straightedges.

What do you think? Am I wrong? I'm still at the start of the learning curve so I may miss something.

Cheers,
Haisam

I going to try to say this a respectful as possible, but I don't think Lee Valley was wrong to tell you that the 1/3mm tolerances are reasonable, and I will explain why.

When using winding sticks, it is generally when you are still flattening and dimensioning your stock and not in the finishing phase. At least thats how I work. I would not need extremely tight tolerance, within reason, because after I get twist out of a board where winding sticks are needed, I generally start taking down high spots and flattening the face. In flattening the face, that is where a straight edge like Lee valley describes would need tighter tolerances because you are getting closer to a final surface.

In short, I understand where Lee valley is coming from, because you generally are not using winding sticks during a final finish step, and at least in my shop 1/64" is acceptable because I'm still dimensioning lumber. Put a piece of wood 1/64" thick on the edge of a board and then sight down it and see how far that sticks up. That is more than a reasonable tolerance for me considering I'm going to be taking a jointer plane and then a smoothing plane over it in my next steps.

[Haitham Jaber]

I thank everyone for all the answer and different opinions that you gave me
on the subject. Listening to all your points of view is very enriching for me, and
having a place where I can share my doubts is priceless.