THE STEEL SQUARE
The steel square, sometimes called the framing square because of its many uses in house framing, is an extremely versatile tool, particularly for rescue shoring at collapse operations. It is used for measuring and marking angle cuts and for calculating lengths for braces and rake shores.
Although a good steel square will have seven scales or tables, the firefighter generally will be concerned with three of these tables: The rafter or framing table and the “hundredths” scale are used to determine the angles and exact length of a rake shore, and the brace table is useful to figure the length of smaller braces.
The steel square consists of two essential parts—the tongue and the body, or blade. The tongue is the short, narrow element, generally 16 inches long and 1 ⅝ inches wide; the body is longer and wider, generally 24 inches long and 2½ inches wide.
