Jeremiah made his Angle Getter from a protractor, a coat hanger wire and a carpenter's line level.  In the Angle Getter kit, all these things are included.   Plus you get graph paper to figure out distances when you estimate distances.

Jeremiah is shown here measuring the angle of a rafter.  It was trying to do this job that led Jeremiah to invent the Angle getter in the first place.

Here is another way Jeremiah learned to measure an angle.  He loosened the wire so that it hung free.  When it was hanging straight down, he tightened the wing-nut and read the angle.  This technique makes it easy to transfer the correct angle to a rafter waiting to be cut.

Here, Jeremiah is drawing a line on a new rafter using the Angle Getter.

Jeremiah found out that he could estimate distances using his Angle Getter.  He operated from a base line. (In this case a picket fence outside his house. ) He measured two angles to the house across the street, one on each end of the base line.

Then, using the graph paper, he drew a small triangle like the big one he actually had made.  This is called a scale drawing.  More complete instructions are inside the Angle Getter kit.

Jeremiah used the same system to find out how far the horse chestnut tree is from his back yard.  There wasn't a fence there so he tied a string between two stakes to make his base line.