Steel Square (400x600, CS-45 print graduation)

This version has two specifications that mark it out from the other 400x600 square in the range, and they are worth comparing honestly.

The first is 2.0mm thickness. That is a substantial plate for a square, and thickness is what makes a large square usable rather than merely large. A thin square of these dimensions flexes when you press it against work or lift it by one arm, and a square that flexes is not reporting a right angle any more. Two millimetres holds its shape.

The second is print graduation with a powder coated finish — and here the trade is genuine. Powder coating gives real corrosion protection, which is worth having on a large square that lives on site rather than in a workshop, and it makes the printed markings stand out clearly against the coloured background, which is easier to read in poor light than fine embossed lines. The cost is that printed graduations wear. On a tool slid across timber and handled in the same places every day, the numbers go first where you use them most. The alternative square in this range carries embossed graduations that cannot wear off, but without the coating.

Which to choose comes down to use: for site work in the weather, the coated printed one; for a workshop where the numbers matter for years, the embossed one.

The buyers are carpenters and framing joiners, formwork and shuttering carpenters, roofing carpenters, building contractors, shopfitters, and hardware dealers supplying construction.

Check it before relying on it: one arm against a known straight edge, scribe along the other, flip the square over onto the same edge at the same point, scribe again. Coinciding lines mean it is true; diverging lines mean it is out by half the gap. Store it hanging flat rather than in a stack, because a large square is easy to bend and a bent one is finished. Ask us on WhatsApp for a price, or for a comparison with the embossed version.