Masonry Magazine December 2004 Page. 17
LEVELS
want two plum vials and one level vial. The reason most manufacturers put multiple vials into their levels is what I call the spare tire concept. Since they're glass or plastic, as the mason tends to tap the level or to hit brick or block with it, the vials tend to break, chip or become inaccurate. So a lot of times, when you're on the job site, you'll see the mason has an X through a particular vial; that's because it's become inaccurate or to indicate that you can use it one direction and not the other."
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December 2004
How about wood versus aluminum? Scott notes, "From all the research I've done, masons like wood because they can put oil on it and it's easy for them to clean. We've never made a wooden level but what I've heard and seen in the field indicates that wood, because it's a living material, it can warp, expand, etc."
Hammond continues the wood-aluminum discussion by saying, "In the U.S., there are an abundance of brass-bound mahogany levels. In Europe and Canada, you just don't see too many of the wood levels anymore. They've basically gone to the aluminum frames. I think that the American mason is somewhat afraid of the aluminum because when aluminum first came out they were flimsy and bendable and in some cases breakable. It's a generational thing."
He adds, "We've gone after the vocational schools to put the rib reinforced aluminum levels into their hands so they can see that they don't get that bending or breakage like they used to."
If there is any place that a level can be expected to take a beating, it's in the schools where mason trainees are just starting to understand the care and feeding of the tools of the trade. As Karraker of Empire Levels notes, "When you tap the level with a trowel to set the block or brick, that tapping could take the accuracy off the level. However, that's not a concern if the level is well made. In the past, with a wood level where the vials were set in plaster and the vials themselves were glass, it was a little more delicate operation. Today the vials are acrylic, not glass, and they're set in silicon not plaster. Where plaster is fragile and can crack, silicon is not that kind of material. So it really is not an issue."
Which brings us back to the wood versus metal argument. While it will never be settled to the satisfaction of everyone, there is one company that can answer all the concerns raised by the metal level adherents: Crick Tools, Athens, Texas.
Sam Alford, President and CEO of Crick, points to their collection of wood levels with the pride of a craftsman. "We do everything that we can to hold 'machine standards' to wood products," he says. "Our specs and tolerances are very tight. Most wood manufacturing people can't hold the tolerances that we hold."
Alford continues, "We use various types of wood. Our standard is mansonia, a wood we import from Africa. We laminate that with red leaf maple from Michigan and Wisconsin. It's a three- or five-layer laminate. We also use cherry and teak, rose wood, beech, afromosa-an African species of wood used in yachts. Since it's laminated, it tends not to move. Wood has a