Spirit level
A spirit level or bubble level is an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is level or plumb. Different types of spirit levels are used by
carpenters,
stone masons, bricklayers, other building trades workers, surveyors, millwrights and other metalworkers.
Spirit levels feature a slightly curved glass tube which is incompletely filled with a liquid, usually coloured 'spirit' , leaving a bubble in the tube. Ethanol is used because of its low freezing point, −114C, which prevents it from freezing in cold weather. Most commonly spirit levels are employed to indicate how horizontal or how vertical a surface is.
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A
spirit level or
bubble level is an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is level or plumb. Different types of spirit levels are used by
carpenters,
stone masons, bricklayers, other building trades workers, surveyors, millwrights and other metalworkers.
Spirit levels feature a slightly curved glass tube which is incompletely filled with a liquid, usually coloured 'spirit' , leaving a bubble in the tube. Ethanol is used because of its low freezing point, −114°C, which prevents it from freezing in cold weather. Most commonly spirit levels are employed to indicate how horizontal or how vertical a surface is.
Some are also capable of indicating the level of a surface between horizontal and vertical to the nearest degree. The crudest form of the spirit level is the
bull's eye level: a circular flat-bottomed device with the liquid under a slightly convex glass face which indicates the center clearly. It serves to level a surface in two perpendicular directions, while the tubular level only does so in the direction of the tube.
The sensitivity of a level is given as the angle, in seconds of arc, by which the level has to be tilted to move the bubble by one graduation unit. For precision levels it is as little as 5?.
Types of level
There are different types of spirit levels for different uses:
- Surveyor's leveling instrument
- Carpenter's level
- Mason's level
- Torpedo level
- Post level
- Line level
- Engineer's precision level
- Electronic level
A spirit level is also usually found on the head of
combination squares.
Surveyor's leveling instrument
Tilting level,
dumpy level or
automatic level are terms used to refer to types of
leveling instruments as used in
surveying to measure height differences over larger distances. It consists of a spirit level in the above sense, mounted on a telescope containing cross-hairs, itself mounted on a tripod. The observer reads height values off two staffs, one 'behind' and one 'in front', to obtain the height difference between the ground points on which the staffs are resting. Starting from a point with a known
elevation, by repeating 'behind', 'front' and intermediate 'front' readings, height differences can be measured cumulatively over large distances and elevations can be calculated of intermediate points.
See: Spirit leveling
Carpenter's level
A traditional carpenter's spirit level looks like a short plank of wood and often has a wide body to ensure both stability, and that the surface is being measured correctly. Embedded in the middle of the spirit level is a small window where the bubble and the tube is mounted. Two notches designate where the bubble should be if the surface was level. Often also an indicator for a 45 degree inclination is included.
Line level
A line level is a level designed to hang on a builders string line. The body of the level incorporates small hooks to allow it to attach and hang from the string line. The body is lightweight, so as not to weigh down the string line, it is also small in size as the string line in effect
becomes the body; when the level is hung in the center of the string, each
leg of the string line extends the levels plane.
Engineer's precision levels
An engineer's precision level permits levelling items to a greater degree of accuracy than a plain spirit level. They are used to level the foundations, or beds of machines to ensure the machine can output workpieces to the accuracy prebuilt in the machine.
History
The spirit level was invented by Melchisedech Thevenot . Thevenot was an amateur scientist and patron of many scientists and mathematicians. He was wealthy and well-connected, later becoming the Royal Librarian to King
Louis XIV of France. Thevenot invented the instrument some time before February 2, 1661. This date can be very accurately established from Thevenot's correspondence with scientist
Christiaan Huygens. Within a year of this date the inventor circulated details of his invention to others, including
Robert Hooke in
London and
Vincenzo Viviani in
Florence. It is occasionally argued that these bubble levels did not come into widespread use until the beginning of the eighteenth century, the earliest surviving examples being from that time, but Adrien Auzout had recommended that the Académie Royale des Sciences take "levels of the Thevenot type" on its expedition to
Madagascar in 1666. It is very likely that these levels were in use in France and elsewhere long before the turn of the century.
Thevenot is often confused with his nephew, the traveller Jean de Thevenot . There is evidence to suggest that both Huygens and Hooke later laid claim to the invention, although only within their own countries.
See also
