PROJECT 1: ENGLISH LAYOUT SQUARE

This is a useful and fairly simple item to build, only requiring three pieces of timber and a few hours of enjoyment in the workshop. The English layout square has been around for quite a few centuries and its history is a little clouded. The tool is based on a ‘libella’ dating back to the sixth century BCE. ‘Libella’ is Latin for ‘level’ or ‘balance’, and it’s essentially a wooden triangle with a plumb bob hanging on a piece of string from its 90° corner. It served the dual purpose of being a 90° layout square and a horizontal level when using the plumb bob and a centrally scribed mark on the cross stretcher. By scribing additional marks on the cross stretcher (at 60°, 45°, 30°, or any other angle you might require) and used in conjunction with the plumb bob, the tool becomes extremely versatile.

Interestingly, it seems that the English layout square was historically used quite widely in cabinetmaking workshops as a daily-use tool, and was often set as a training project for apprentices. Today, we all use fluid or laser-based levels, so for our build, we’ll stick with just the basic traditional English layout square without the plumb-bob component.