"Trend Perfect Butt
Woodworking is enjoyable
when everything goes
right but trying to fit anything to
a wonky wall can be the most
frustrating thing in he world.
Scribing is a well-known art, but
is better suited or single edge
jointing. If you have complex
shapes to fit to, with scribes on
more than one edge (such as for
alcoves) you need a different
technique. Known as spiling, this
is usually done with a template
and block of wood. The Perfect
Butt makes the job far easier.
The device is simplicity itself.
It consists of a hollow metal tube
wih three tracing wheels of
different diameters which push
onto the bottom hub. The tube
has a knurled cap which enables
a pencil to be dropped inside. A
spring over the top keeps it
pressed down so that the pencil
projects through the bottom.
For normal single edge
scribing, the wheel is placed
against the wall with the
workpiece butted to it. You
simply wheel the Perfect Butt
along the wall to make a perfect
copy of its undulations.
By changing wheels bigger
gaps can be accommodated. If
you have minimal scribing
material to play with, pull the
work away until the widest point
is at the pencil tip.
For spiling work it's a bit
more complex. You need to lay a
template board on the area to be
scribed and run the Perfect Butt
around all the surfaces with an
appropriate wheel. This gives
you a perfect representation of
the walls, but inset by the radius
of the wheel. The template then
needs to be cut accurately to the
line and placed on the work. By
running the Perfect Butt around
the newly-shaped template you
end up with a perfect replica.
Unlike the normal compass
or block and pencil methods
which don't give a perfectly true
representation, especially on
excessive curves the wheel with
its central pencil is always
equidistant from the scribing
point, anywhere on the wall.
An excellent addition to the
tool kit. It might not get used
every day, but it's easy to use
and gives perfect resuits."
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