One of my favorite Woodpeckers one-time tools: the DelVe square, is now available as a regular tool on their website, priced at $60. If you order one before February 17, 2020, you can get a pre-sale discount and pick up the diminutive square for $50.
I reviewed the Delve square way back in 2015 and photographed just about all the operations you can perform with the square. Here’s a quick rundown on the features:
- 90° and 45° angles with angle scale
- Offset base with 1/4″ and 3/8″ measurements
- Total base width 3/4″ and 1/4″ thick
- Blade is 1/8″ thick and 1/2″ wide.
- Scribing guides every 1/8″
- Peephole for centering holes in a 3/4″ wide board.
The only real difference I can see between the original one-time tool from 5 years ago and the new version is the new version comes in a protective MDF holder rather than a foam-lined plastic case.
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The DelVe square is expected to ship in the middle of March 2020 (3/20/2020).
Price: $60 ($50 before 2/12/2020)
Buy DelVe Square from Woodpeckers
Discussion
Since the introduction of the DelVe square in 2015, there have been a few new entries into this pocket square category.
If you are looking for a low cost option, there’s a new Milwaukee Tool trim square. It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of the DelVe square, but the Milwaukee trim square has enough of the features and at a much lower price that it could be a viable option. I posted about the similarities on Instagram a while ago.
Price: $11
Buy Milwaukee Square via Acme Tools
Buy Milwaukee Square via Tool Nut
Another new contender is the Martinez micro square. It’s also made from aluminum (their full size square is made from titanium) and has a ton of built-in features.
There are limited quantities of the Imperial micro square available and the Metric version is currently sold out and they aren’t expecting any until December, although I’m not sure if they mean 2019 or 2020.
Price: $75
Dave says
$11 works for me.
$60 doesn’t.
Chris says
Yep, I have the $11 one and have no issues with it. Goes perfect with my 7-1/4″ miter saw.
Joatman says
Woodpecker products are outrageously expensive. Don’t confuse expensive with “overpriced “. I don’t know how much is involved or invested in their machining but their products are certainly impressive. I own the 6” edge rule. Cost under $20 at a local store. Chances are this will be the only Woodpecker product I will ever buy. I build frames for a hobby and have a great use for a lot of their products but STILL cannot justify the cost. I can see how their products might be perceived as over-engineered to those who don’t need, or can’t use all the bells and whistles. Take the 3” inch square….I’d love to have that, but I bought the 4.5” Milwaukee trim square a few months back at HD for about $11, as mentioned above and love it. It serves my purpose. Now, does the Woodpecker square provide $50 worth of additional features??? Not for me. For anyone? I’m curious how one could justify the cost compared to its worth.
ca says
They are overpriced though.
ca says
Why are the angle increments 5 degrees? That’s almost useless.
Benjamen says
I was wrong, I said that there was little different between the old square and the new one. They did add 22.5 and 67.5 angles on the new one.
My answer is that this type of tool in general is the wrong tool for accurate angle markings. Which seems like a stupid thing to say because this is supposed to be a precision tool.
May guess is that the angle markings are just added to fill space on the edge to “add value.” The real measurements are 90 and 45 degrees.
Tony says
One more “insignificant” difference. The Delve Square from 5 years ago has “July 2015” laser etched at the bottom.
Ryan says
Are those Milwaukee squares actually “square”? I originally discovered woodpeckers after being seriously frustrated by speed squares from big box stores being waaaay out of spec. Not square, not flat, or not the same on both sides. At that point, the price for perfection seemed worth it.
Tony says
Good point. I did the 2-line test on one of the new Milwaukee trim squares (discussed above) and found that it was perfectly square.
Mack says
Nope not square. Had to file it down
John says
I’ve been very happy with the WP 6” stainless steel delve square. The thinner blade is so much better than the thick aluminum blades on most WP items.
Philip Proctor says
LOFL @ $60
Travis says
Laugh on the floor laughing?
Lounge on the floor laughing?
(I like the latter.)
Peter from South O says
I just sold one of the 2015 one time tool versions on an auction site for $71. There is no logic in that.
Frank D says
I can somewhat understand development cost, sourcing production facility, draft run, limited production, etc. type stuff … but geeez $75 … $60 … for a single piece machined object without power or moving parts … that is a objectively a smaller version of the average $10-15-20 square?
Ouch. And skip.
Benjamen says
Standard squares are stamped. If you machined a standard square you’d be paying significantly more for them too.
Scar says
To be fair, the Milwaukee trim square is machined aluminum and made in the USA.
Granted it is extruded and THEN machined (unlike the Woodpecker which is just machined from a block of aluminum) but the fit and finish on the Milwaukee is still pretty nice!
Benjamen says
Okay we’ve been playing fast and loose with what “machined” means and I’m just as guilty.
The Milwaukee trim square is (probably) extruded and then stamped. I know it is stamped. I’ve seen the stamping process in the Milwaukee/Empire plant. You can also feel it if you pick up the square. Feel the rectangular hole by the base. One side is sharper and more crisp and the other is slightly rounded. This is consistent with stamping.
They obviously smooth the rough stamped edges. They may mill the edges, on the Milwaukee square, but they are only removing a few thousandths to get crisp, precise edges.
The Delve square on the other hand is “milled” from a solid piece of aluminum stock.
I will agree that the finish on the Milwaukee square is nicer than a lot of the other squares on the market, but it still doesn’t compare to the finish of the DelVe square.
Scar says
::thumbs up::
Yes, “milled” would be the word. Thanks Benjamen!
ca says
But who cares how they’re made? You can either pay $10 for something that makes square lines or $60 for something that makes square lines.
Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/dUh1eGf57DY
I guess they must be selling though or they wouldn’t be making them. To each their own.
Joatman says
Saw that before! Funny as hell!
Koko the Talking Ape says
I can understand the high price for a limited run tool. The price has to recover the one-time costs of tooling, design, etc. I wouldn’t buy one, because it’s too expensive, but I don’t think the price is excessive.
But since they are going to make more of these, shouldn’t the price be lower? It just needs to cover the production costs, plus a bit for profit and paying off those up-front costs. But they have forever to do that now, right?
Benjamen says
I’m not sure, but I don’t think there’s “tooling” for this square. I believe it’s cut out of a single piece of aluminum on a CNC, Sure there may be some fixtures for holding the square in place, but that’s less expensive than say a stamp for cutting out the squares you see at Home Depot.
Also a one-time tool is a large batch run once. If this is “stocked”, they are probably running smaller batches more often which isn’t as cost effective.
This is just speculation on my part though.
JoeM says
Forgive my presumption… but couldn’t we compare Woodpecker’s tools to a kind of… US-Made Lee-Valley/Veritas kind of model?
Veritas products are made by Lee Valley employees with huge amounts of skills and experience, who are also not satisfied with “Standard” tools made in their industry. As such, these employees, get sent to home office in Ottawa, to work in the original Machine Shop, where they literally make nothing but Prototypes now. When they first started the company, that little shop was the Factory Floor, but now it’s just updated machines, and really obsessed employees trying to make a new, better version of the “Standard” tool that has failed them for the last time.
The Veritas Carver’s Knife, Carver’s Vise, and Pin Vise, all came out of this particular process. The original founder wasn’t happy with how standard carving knives worked, so he machined a more ergonomic handle to fit standard blades, and they’ve been making them ever since. Over the course of… I think it’s 40 or more years now? They’ve machined everything from toy magic tricks, to trick locks, to duplicates of legendary royal gifts, like the Ring of Aquitaine, which tells time based on a pin hole sundial. And for a long time, these were limited-run objects. They were even made to order. Some of their April Fools Jokes even ended up being made, because the user base started demanding it.
Isn’t Woodpeckers kinda this model too? They’re not sitting in a million square foot factory, like a GM plant, they’re located in a couple thousand square feet of machining space, and own a separate warehouse for what they produce? Every single piece of equipment they make is designed, machined, prototyped, and measured by hand to start, and then they machine the parts necessary to stamp them out in small batches once that prototype can be reliably made.
They’re obsessed with getting it PERFECT, rather than Cost Effective. Like Lee Valley is with their Veritas products. You’d think a standard hand held Plane would work the right way after 5 centuries of the same design, but somehow Lee Valley and Veritas weren’t happy with it, so they just… made it BETTER in a million little ways… Same with these Woodpeckers squares and one-time tools. Their business model doesn’t support making them cheap, it only supports the obsessive compulsive aspect in every perfectionist machinist or woodworker they’ve ever met or worked with. If it’s not right by THEIR standards, it doesn’t leave the door to the customer.
Does all of this analogy sound about right to Woodpeckers fans? Because, if it does, then I would understand the price being so high. Some of Veritas’ specialty Planes are running in the $800 range, when you can pick up one that is based on a 500 year old design for making Sea Chests, for right around $50 made THIS YEAR. What a Veritas plane can do compared to the model it was based on is lightyears apart from the old design. It contains features that may only need to be used ONCE, and that exact model can be handed down from generation to generation, without a single flaw or failure. Maybe a replacement blade, but since the company has been open at least 2 generations, getting a replacement shouldn’t be too difficult. That $60 square doesn’t represent 0.5 seconds of metal stamping, 12 seconds getting dipped in paint and dried, then another 0.5 seconds to have the markings blindly stamped on by another machine. It represents someone having machined the STAMP itself, after having machined a prototype of what is going to be stamped out by hand. It represents someone going through and making sure the machine doing the work is maintained for accuracy, and for quality control to be under the supervision of someone who is one lab accident away from being a Bond Villain, obsessed with making THE PERFECT tool.
These things cost a lot more because they’re being made in small batches, and the machines that make them are regularly maintained for consistency by machining new stamps (Dyes? Are they Dyes at this scale?) when the impacts of regular use knock the specs off by JUST enough to irritate the Quality Control Psycho in charge.
There’s a Veritas Rotary Tool Router Circle and Straight Edge set by Lee Valley/Veritas, and the total cost of the set is close to $300. I have yet to truly NEED my Router attachment for my Rotary Tools, but the Veritas system is what I want. I already OWN the Dremel-Made Rotary Attachment for the Plunge Router… It’s Plastic, it has everything marked beautifullly, it has convenient transparent parts where you may want to see through it, and it has a convenient place ONBOARD to hold wrenches and other Router bits… And y’know what? It SUCKS compared to the Veritas one. The Veritas one is solid metal, has marked, and easily readable ENGRAVED measurements, more sturdy handles, and is made of SIGNIFICANTLY longer lasting materials. You could drop a house on the thing, dust it off, and the house would have suffered more damage. The Dremel made one would be ready to be recycled in the plastics bin, but the Veritas is built so the weight of it ENSURES accuracy.
I look at Woodpeckers and I see a kind of… American Veritas… I don’t like their “One Time Tool” model any more than any other person, and their prices are WAY outside my limits. But go inside their factory and you see a lot of twitchy, obsessed, perfectionists at work. It’s easy to call them Expensive… But I don’t think I could call them “Overpriced” for all the work that went into them. Do I NEED the Faberge Egg of Pocket Squares? No. I don’t do enough woodworking to justify it. Do I need the Rolls Royce of Router Base Systems for my Dremel Tools? There are days I think I’m WORTH that investment. After all, it’s a Rolls Royce because it enables you to do MUCH higher quality things than before.
That’s where I draw the line. Companies like Veritas and Woodpeckers… It’s not worth looking at them unless you’re EXTREMELY serious about what their products do. It’s no joke, and you HAVE to justify the money spent on the product somehow. So, all these comments about the price… I take with a grain of salt. I’m Canadian, and I am VERY accustomed to Veritas products. Woodpeckers seems to be an American version of the same thing. Yeah, the prices are a lot higher than Veritas. But, I can still RESPECT the obsessive quality of their products. Even without having used them. Most articles here on ToolGuyd about their One Time Tools look like “Well, that’s a good idea!” to me. I respect them for that.
PlaneGrain says
Well I guess this gives some hope to the EZedge coming back. It would be nice to see their replacement blades available again.
Christopher Trucksess says
I’d like to toss a shout to DFM toolworks. I have their mini square and am impressed with its quality and accuracy. I have a few wp tools and cherish them but the dfm is really close without the cost.
Carolina Tool Junkie says
Just saw this post linked from the recent Empire combination square post and thought I’d chime in.
I was raised by a trained machinist who taught me not only to use the right tool for the job, but what makes a high-quality tool. Even though I don’t work with my hands for a living, I like to work with high-quality tools and not doubting my square is a good place to start from.
I bought one of these Delve squares at a woodworking show a couple of years back. It was probably slightly discounted, one of the last they had at the time. It still was not cheap, but I have found this square to be incredibly well made, accurate and super useful in simple to complex projects.
I particularly like the size and the thought and detail that went into designing and manufacturing such a quality bit of kit. I use it all the time and it has even replaced some of the regular tasks I was using my combination square for.
To that end, getting this Woodpeckers piece placated my desire to get a Starrett combination square, considering how I use this for marking and squaring up projects.
As mentioned above, expensive, but not overprived.