Thanks Don.

Jay, I think you are missing the obvious, try thinking laterally instead of literally. The King James translation is well before the era of square rule carpentry and construction but you will find within the passage evidence of reference plane thinking and from the tried foundation stone evidence of forming material to reference planes. Building and carpentry method has for ages had the concept of tried and trued, it's embedded in tool names ie try square and try plane. I find that your insistence that surface planes are not relevant to be uncraftsmanlike. What you seem to discount is the conversion and stock preparation as part of layout, when craftsmen reshape the stock it is toward a purpose. You are talking about systems however it strikes me that you are trying to make cheese but bypassing the dairy animals.