Homemade Compass - for Drawing circles of any size

**captain belly** · Nov 4, 2018, 07:22 AM

Thought I'd actually start contributing some of my tool ideas. This video is pretty old, but the quality is good enough to see the details.
This is a compass I made from scrap metal. I'm always needing to draw and cut out circles, and there's not a compass made that's affordable that will draw the various sizes that I need. So.... I made one, and it works great. Hope this helps someone else.

**wizard69** · Nov 5, 2018, 09:48 AM

Nice work. The vise grip gives me ideas.

I suspect at some point you will need to build a beam compass but this has to work great for mid size arcs.

**captain belly** · Nov 5, 2018, 06:47 PM

I haven't needed to build anything bigger....... YET.

**Frank S** · Nov 5, 2018, 09:02 PM

Originally Posted by captain belly

I haven't needed to build anything bigger....... YET.

I like your compass set with the mini vice grip style pliers on it.
There have been times when I clamped a pair of trammel points to a 20 ft length of sq tubing once for laying out a turn table for a rotating stage another time when making a squeeze coral

**DIYer** · Nov 6, 2018, 08:47 AM

Thanks captain belly! We've added your Compass to our Measuring and Marking category,
as well as to your builder page: captain belly's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Compass by captain belly

tags: compass

**ranald** · Nov 7, 2018, 05:22 PM

I like this too. If I ever get around to it I would use a wing nut bolt & also sharpen a rod for dividers & for marking harder materials like plate. I use some 60's stadler ones but even with the beam these are often too small & I cant always use a trammel/router setup.