Masonic Working Tools: Symbols and Meanings Across the Three Degrees

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What Are the Masonic Working Tools?

In operative stonemasonry, working tools were the instruments a craftsman used every day: gauges for measuring, gavels for shaping, squares for testing angles. When speculative Freemasonry emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, these physical tools were retained but given new meaning. Each tool received both an operative explanation (what it does in building) and a speculative interpretation (what it teaches about character).

The presentation follows a consistent ritual formula. Albert Mackey documented the standard phrasing: "An instrument made use of by operative Masons to [operative purpose]. But we, as Free and Accepted Masons, are taught to make use of it for the more noble and glorious purpose of [speculative meaning]." This formula, with minor variations, is repeated for every tool in every degree.

The tools are presented as miniatures during degree ceremonies, not functional implements. The Worshipful Master (or a designated officer) presents them to the newly obligated candidate as part of a formal lecture. The candidate receives them not as objects to be physically used but as symbols to be contemplated and, in time, internalized.

Entered Apprentice Tools: Gauge, Gavel, and Chisel

The Entered Apprentice is the first degree: the beginning of the Masonic path. Its tools are the simplest and most physical. They are the instruments of preparation, of rough work, of breaking ground.

The 24-Inch Gauge

Operative use: A measuring ruler used by operative masons to measure and lay out their work, ensuring stones were cut to the correct dimensions. Accuracy at this stage determined whether the finished stone would fit its place in the wall.

Speculative symbolism: The 24 inches represent the 24 hours of the day, divided into three equal portions of eight: eight hours for service to God and charity, eight for usual vocations, and eight for refreshment and rest. The gauge teaches the first and most fundamental discipline: the management of time.

This is not an arbitrary moral lesson. Time management is, practically speaking, the foundation on which all other virtues are built. A person who cannot organize their day cannot reliably practice any other discipline. The gauge comes first because without it, every subsequent tool is wasted effort.

The Common Gavel

Operative use: A mason's hammer with one flat face and one pointed or cutting edge. Used to break off the rough corners and superfluous parts of stones, shaping the rough ashlar into a workable form. It is the tool of forceful removal.

Speculative symbolism: "Divesting our minds and consciences of all the vices and superfluities of life, thereby fitting our bodies, as living stones, for that spiritual building, that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." The gavel removes what does not belong. It is the instrument of honest self-examination: identifying the rough edges, the habitual faults, the inherited patterns that prevent the stone from fitting its proper place.

The Chisel (English, Canadian, and Australian Lodges)

Operative use: Used in conjunction with the gavel or mallet to perform finer work on the stone: removing flaws, finishing surfaces, revealing the inner quality of the material. Where the gavel breaks off large pieces, the chisel refines.

Speculative symbolism: The chisel "points out the advantages of education, by which means alone we are rendered fit members of regularly organized Society." If the gavel is brute self-discipline, the chisel is education: the more precise instrument that reveals potential through careful, sustained effort.

Most US Grand Lodges omit the chisel, assigning only two tools to the Entered Apprentice. In English-style workings (United Grand Lodge of England, Canada, Australia, and others), the chisel completes a triad of three, giving each degree a balanced set.

Fellow Craft Tools: Square, Level, and Plumb

The Fellow Craft is the second degree, emphasizing learning, intellectual development, and the liberal arts and sciences. Its tools are instruments of testing and measurement. Where the Entered Apprentice tools shape the stone, the Fellow Craft tools verify that the shaping was done correctly.

The Square

Operative use: Used to test and mark 90-degree angles, ensure rectangular corners, and verify that edges are true. Essential because chisels naturally produce curved surfaces; the square confirms that the mason's work is geometrically accurate.

Speculative symbolism: The square teaches morality: to "square our actions" by the standard of virtue and to act with honesty and fairness in all dealings. It is the symbol of moral testing. Just as the operative square reveals whether a corner is true or false, the speculative square asks: is this action straight? Does it meet the standard?

The square is so central to Masonic identity that it appears in the Craft's most recognizable emblem, the Square and Compasses, and has given English the phrase "on the square," meaning honest and upright.

The Level

Operative use: Used to lay levels and prove horizontal surfaces, ensuring that floors, courses of stone, and foundations are flat and even. A structure built on an uneven foundation will eventually crack and fail.

Speculative symbolism: The level teaches equality. All Masons meet "on the level" regardless of worldly rank or station. A king and a tradesman, within the lodge, stand on the same horizontal plane. The level reminds the Mason that time is impartial: it levels all distinctions eventually, and what remains is the quality of the character, not the height of the station.

The Plumb Rule

Operative use: A weight (plumb bob) suspended from a string, used to test that walls, columns, and vertical structures are perfectly upright. Even a slight deviation from true vertical, compounded over the height of a wall, produces structural failure.

Speculative symbolism: The plumb teaches "justness and uprightness of life and actions." To stand plumb is to stand true regardless of external pressure, temptation, or convenience. The metaphor is direct: a wall that leans, however slightly, will eventually fall. A character that compromises its principles, however slightly, accumulates deviation that becomes collapse.

Master Mason Tools: Trowel, Skirret, Pencil, and Compasses

The Master Mason degree is the third and highest degree in the Blue Lodge. Its tools differ significantly depending on jurisdiction, and this difference reveals something about how different Masonic traditions understand the nature of mastery itself.

The Trowel (US Jurisdictions)

Operative use: A flat-bladed hand tool used to spread, smooth, and finish mortar between stones, binding them together in a structure. Without the trowel, individual stones remain a pile; with it, they become a wall, an arch, a temple.

Speculative symbolism: The trowel spreads "the cement of Brotherly Love and Affection" that unites all members of the Masonic fraternity into one common band. It is presented in most US rituals with the statement: "The working tools of a Master Mason are all the implements of Masonry indiscriminately, but more especially the Trowel."

The trowel is the only tool in the system that joins rather than cuts, measures, or tests. Its placement at the culmination of the three degrees carries a clear message: the final purpose of all the previous work (shaping, testing, refining) is connection. The individual stones, however perfectly hewn, mean nothing until they are bound together in service of a structure larger than themselves.

The Skirret, Pencil, and Compasses (English and Other Jurisdictions)

In the Emulation system used by the United Grand Lodge of England (and by lodges in Canada, Australia, Scotland, and many other countries), the Master Mason receives three tools instead of one, completing the pattern of a triad for each degree.

The Skirret: A reel of chalked string that operates on a center pin. When the string is pulled taut and snapped, it marks a straight line on the ground for laying out foundations. Mackey defined it precisely: "An implement which acts upon a center-pin, whence a line is drawn, chalked, and struck to mark out the ground for the foundation of the intended structure." Speculatively, the skirret "points to a straight and undeviating line of conduct laid down for our pursuits in the Volume of the Sacred Law."

The Pencil: The instrument of the architect or master builder, used to draw plans and mark measurements on the tracing board. Speculatively, the pencil teaches that "all our words and actions are not only observed but are recorded by the Most High." God, as the Great Architect, records everything with his pencil. Nothing is lost or forgotten.

The Compasses: More accurately called "dividers" in this context: a measuring instrument with points on both legs, used for proportion, symmetry, and transferring measurements across the plan. Speculatively, the compasses remind us of God's "unerring and impartial justice" and teach the Mason to keep his "passions and desires within due bounds."

The Ashlar Journey: From Rough to Perfect

The two ashlars, presented in the earliest degree, provide the overarching framework that gives the working tools their narrative coherence.

The Rough Ashlar is an undressed stone fresh from the quarry. It represents the Mason at the beginning of his path: unfinished, unrefined, full of potential but lacking form. It also represents, in Albert Pike's political reading, "the PEOPLE, as a mass, rude and unorganized."

The Perfect Ashlar is a stone that has been cut, squared, and polished for use in building. It represents "the mind of a man at the close of life, after a well-regulated career of piety and virtue," as one Masonic commentator described it. It is also, in Pike's reading, "the STATE," the organized body politic shaped by law and order.

The working tools are the instruments of this transformation. The gauge and gavel (and chisel) do the initial rough work: measuring and breaking away what does not belong. The square, level, and plumb test the results: is the stone true? Is it even? Is it upright? The trowel (or the skirret, pencil, and compasses) takes the finished stone and incorporates it into the structure.

This is not merely a metaphor. It is a curriculum. The Masonic degrees are a progressive course of instruction, and the tools are the syllabus. Each degree builds on the previous one. You cannot effectively test a stone (FC) that has not been rough-hewn (EA). You cannot bind stones into a temple (MM) that have not been tested for trueness (FC). The sequence matters.

The Esoteric Reading: Pike, Mackey, and Hall

The three most influential Masonic writers each brought a distinct lens to the working tools.

Pike: Force and Law

Albert Pike, in Morals and Dogma, read the Entered Apprentice tools as a political and metaphysical pairing. The gavel represents Force: "The FORCE of the people, or the popular will, in action and exerted, symbolized by the GAVEL." The gauge represents Law: the regulating principle that gives direction and structure to force.

Without the gauge, force is wasted. Pike wrote: "Force, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil and bruise itself." Together, regulated force produces "LIBERTY, EQUALITY, and FRATERNITY."

Pike extended this reading to the Master Mason degree, declaring that "all the FORCES at man's disposal or under man's control, or subject to man's influence, are his working tools." The Master Mason, in Pike's reading, does not merely hold a trowel. He holds every force available to him and is responsible for their right application.

Mackey: Etymology and Precision

Albert Mackey approached the tools with a lexicographer's discipline, insisting that accurate understanding began with accurate language. He traced each tool to its operative function and its linguistic root. His definitions became the standard reference for Masonic education, forming the template that lodge lecturers have followed for over a century.

Mackey's contribution was to anchor the speculative interpretations in historical fact. Before you can understand what the square means, you must understand what it does. Before you can interpret the skirret as a symbol of moral straightness, you must know that it is, literally, a chalked string snapped against the ground to mark a line. The operative reality disciplines the speculative interpretation, preventing it from drifting into mere abstraction.

Hall: The Divine Tools

Manly P. Hall took the most explicitly mystical approach. In The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, he described the Mason as "a builder of the temple of character" and the tools as instruments of divine self-knowledge. Hall wrote of the ashlar journey: "Man is, in truth, born in the sin of ignorance, but with a capacity for understanding. He has a mind capable of wisdom, a heart capable of feeling, and a hand strong for the great work in life: truing the rough ashlar into the perfect stone."

Hall also issued a warning. In his retelling of the Hiramic Legend, the three ruffians who murder Hiram Abiff strike him "with the tools of his own Craft." The instruments of building become instruments of destruction when wielded by ignorance, fanaticism, and envy. The working tools are morally neutral. They can shape or they can destroy. The difference lies entirely in the consciousness of the one who holds them.