Contour Gauge Profile Tool

It copies an outline. It does not measure depth. The pins slide in one plane, so what you get is the silhouette of an edge as you press it on: anything deeper than 45 mm will not be reached, and detail narrower than the gap between two pins will be bridged over rather than picked up.

Card, paper and a pencil

Paper buckles against a corner and the line you draw is the paper's edge, not the wall's

A curve drawn by hand is a few millimetres out, which is the gap you see once it is fitted

You need a second pair of hands to hold the card while you mark it

The template is floppy by the time you get it to the saw

This gauge

The pins sit flat against the surface, so what you copy is the surface itself

Each pin holds its own position, so a curve comes out as a series of exact points

One hand presses, one hand tightens, and the shape is locked

It is rigid when you carry it, so the profile arrives intact

🔒

It locks, it does not just hold

A single screw at the end of the bar clamps every pin at once. Without that, the shape falls apart the moment you lift it off the wall.

📏

Numbers on the bar

A scale printed along the black bar, so you can read a width or a step straight off the tool instead of reaching for a tape.

🦷

Fine, closely set pins

The pins are thin and packed tight, which is what lets them follow moulding and trim rather than smoothing it into a vague curve.

📐

45 mm of travel

Each pin slides 45 mm, so the gauge handles skirting, architrave and pipe boxing. It will not take the full depth of a deep cornice.

✋

One person can do it

Press with one hand, tighten with the other. No helper holding a template while you try to mark a line.

🎨

Three colours, two sizes

Red, blue and green. The colour is so you can tell two gauges apart on a bench, nothing more. It does not change how the tool works.

12 cm

5 in · 172 g

Skirting against a wall

Architrave and window trim

Pipe boxing and column corners

Small moulding and carving

25 cm

10 in · 320 g

A whole wall corner in one press

Wide arcs and curved walls

Tiling around a stone face

Flooring against an irregular edge

Both have 45 mm pins

Same depth of travel, same height, same scale. The only difference is how much width you can copy in one press.

Not sure?

The 25 cm does everything the 12 cm does, it is just longer to hold against a narrow trim. If you are fitting a whole room, take the 25.

🧱

Tiling

Cutting a tile around a pipe, a column or an uneven corner. Copy the shape, transfer it to the tile, cut once instead of three times.

🪵

Skirting and architrave

Old walls are never plumb. Copy the gap at the corner and cut the trim to it, rather than filling a 6 mm gap with caulk.

🪜

Flooring

The last board against a stone wall, a fireplace surround or a curved threshold. This is the cut that gets ruined most often.

🚪

Door and window trim

Moulding profiles, especially on older frames where the carving is not quite symmetrical on both sides.

🚗

Wrapping and vinyl

Copying a panel edge or a body line so a wrap template lines up. Also used for cutting shelf paper and laminate around awkward shapes.

🔧

Making templates

Copy once, then use the locked gauge as a physical template to transfer the same profile onto several pieces of material.

Three parts, and only one of them moves

The pins are the working part: thin plastic rods set side by side, each free to slide in its own channel by up to 45 mm. Because they are independent, a curve comes out as a row of exact contact points rather than an approximation, and because they are thin, moulding with several small steps is copied as several small steps. The black bar across the middle does two jobs: it carries the scale, so you can read a width directly, and it is the clamp. Turning the single screw at its end squeezes the whole row of pins at once, which is why the profile survives being carried across a room. The body is a rigid plastic frame, and the weight tells you which one you are holding: the 12 cm is 172 g, the 25 cm is 320 g, and both are 102 mm tall with the same 45 mm pins.

★★★★★

Used it to cut skirting around an old fireplace and got it right first time. I have ruined three lengths of trim doing this by eye.

Stephen W. · Verified Buyer

★★★★★

Bought the 25 cm for tiling around a stone wall and it was the right call. The smaller one would not have spanned the stones in one go.

Nadia K. · Verified Buyer

★★★★★

The lock is the thing. I had a cheap one with no screw and it was useless, the pins moved the second you picked it up.

Robert C. · Verified Buyer

★★★★★

Bought one in each size. The small one lives in the toolbox and the big one stays in the workshop, and the colours mean I can tell which is which at a glance.

Helen M. · Verified Buyer