The Compass Box!
Who remembers these Camlin compass boxes from school? The first thing I’d do was to discard the dividers and set-squares. No one ever taught us what those were for, and the only use for a divider I’d seen was to use it like a compass to scratch circles onto our desks. Or to poke holes in things (while trying not to poke oneself with the other end). Of course the ruler got a lot of use, as did the compass and even the protractor - but those freaking set-squares were gone right away - no point taking up extra room in the box.
Fast forward 20 years to today. I know at least one use for the set-square. Its a fixed 90 degrees, so I can line up one edge with the board / paper etc. and cut along the other to get a perfect right-angled corner. This way my books aren’t all crooked and warped. Picked that one up from DAS Bookbinding’s amazing YouTube channel. Heck I can’t live without it!
Set-square in action. No excuses for crooked cuts.
And the humble divider. You can use it to replicate the same measurement repeatedly without having to use a ruler each time. Just set your divider to the desired distance, and then use one pointy bit to gently create an indent in the paper. Blah bad explanation, but you know what I mean.
The point of all of this was to say that life really comes full circle. Today I have no use for a compass or a protractor, but the stuff that I discarded as useless has become essential. Who woulda thunk?!
Carefully digging through the compass drawer at SCRAP in search of a divider. Oh the irony!