Set Square and Protractor
Metric and Imperial

RB Productions

Reviewed by James Hatch

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I’ve been using RB Productions tools for a number of years, including their various rivet tools, scribers and razor saws etc. and find them a real joy to work with, as well as nicely designed and of high quality. Whilst I was visiting the RB Productions stall at Telford’s Scale Model World, this November, Radu Brinzan gave me a few goodies to review and publish here at Hyperscale. The first of these (well, actually two items) are the Set Square & Protractor sets in both metric and imperial gauges. Sounds like we’re back at school, right? Well, if you are do any degree of scratch-building in your hobby, then these new releases could be very useful.

The Set Square & Protractor sets are packed into a small zip-lock wallet with a piece of card inserted to protect the thin photo-etch fret. The PE itself is manufactured from stainless steel, so shouldn’t mark too easily and also last a long time, providing you treat it with some respect. Before you can begin to use these, you’ll need to remove them from their frets. This material is a little tougher than brass or nickel sheet, so a new blade and some successive scribing and gentle bending will remove the parts. Use a small file to remove any tab that may remain and/or cause a sharp edge.

As for the tools, they are very, very self-explanatory. The protractor has a series of very small holes and thin slots that can be used with a sharp pencil, to mark accurate angles from a single reference point. That point comes from a notch in the bottom-centre of the tool, exactly as you would use as reference with a clear, plastic protractor that you used in Maths at school. Of course, the protractor is identical in both of these sets, marked in one-degree, staggered intervals that allow super accurate measurement. All positions are etched with the degree mark, and run both clockwise and counter-clockwise, so it’s easy to determine your angle no matter what side you work from. Radial slots are provided too, at five-degree intervals.

The set square will prove to be a very useful tool. The metric one is marked in millimetres and centimetres. There are actually 0.5mm etched marks on this, so you can easily determine the position of such if you mark the millimetre either side of this. Both inner and outer edges are marked and etched with a series of holes for your sharp pencil. Being very thin, it’s also easy to drape this over a fuselage or wing and accurately mark positions. As the RB website also states, the flexible edge can be used to scribe against, having accurately marked your start and end positions.

Of course, the imperial set square is marked in inches, and divisions thereof.

This is a an inexpensive tool that will earn its keep if you like to do more than just glue kit parts together. Produced with high quality materials and the design rationale of a first rate modeller himself, Radu’s Set Square & Protractor sets have multiple uses and their literal flexibility will make them a delight for marking out rivet lines and other surface demarcations.

Thanks to RB Productions for the sample.

Text and Images Copyright © 2019 by James Hatch
This Page Created on 8 February, 2019
Last updated 8 February, 2019

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