Picked up a used combination square at a garage sale for $3 and it's more accurate than my new one from the big box store

The casting on the new one was off by a solid 1/32 inch, but this old Stanley from the 50s checks dead square every time, has anyone else noticed newer tools just aren't machined as well anymore?

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stone.troy1mo ago

Yeah, that 1/32 slop is exactly what I've run into with the new ones. My fix was to file the beam square on a cheap combo square from the big box store - just a few passes with a fine file and checked it against a known flat edge. The old Stanley stuff had better castings because they weren't cutting corners on tooling costs. If you find one of those at a garage sale for three bucks, you got a deal. Keep that one, itll last forever.