A heavy, flat-bottomed base equipped with an adjustable upright mast that holds a pointed scriber. It is dragged across a surface plate to scratch perfectly parallel horizontal lines onto a workpiece at an exact height. While largely replaced by digital height gages, it remains a traditional tool for transferring measurements and marking layout lines.
Heard on the job
Set the scribing block to exactly two inches and mark the center line on all four blanks.
Also heard as
- surface gage