55 days ago
by RGtools |
16 comments »
This might seem totally obsessive, but I am an efficiency Nazi in my shop. Wasted movements drive me crazy and any time I can get into a habit that saves me a few seconds it makes me happy. This is of course especially true in the case of repetitive tasks.
One such task is marking the layout lines of a board to cut it square. If you have been working with hand tools for even a short time you have probably heard to “Reference only from your true face and true edge”. This is sage wisdom, but...
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583 days ago
by Brit |
19 comments »
Last week when I was in Denmark, I popped in to see Mads and after a terrific meal, we spent a few hours talking tools. Time passes quickly when you’re in good company and all too soon it seems, I was on the last train back to my hotel. During the evening Mads presented me with a present – a MAFE original marking knife, which as you can see, came with a smile.
Mads made the knife to use Exacto blades, so eventually after many sharpenings, I will be able to replace the blade...
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937 days ago
by PaBull |
9 comments »
OK, I was not going to start this knife for a while, too busy….. but I could not help myself. (I might need help)
I found a piece of spalted pallet wood. With heart and sap wood. I think it’s kinda pretty. (This one is for you Jusfine )
I bought a lathe about a year ago ($75, garage sale, including the chisels), but I never dared to turn it on. Well, last night was the night, and I am still here.
For the knife I used an old sawzall blade, the same as I did with the ca...
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1554 days ago
by Docwks |
2 comments »
I purchased the kadet version of the marking knife and decided I wanted the big one i.e. Fat Boy, but wanted the challange of doing it myself so I bought the kit. I will upload picture as soon as I figure a way to put them in here.
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1603 days ago
by johngoes |
3 comments »
I decided that it’s time to tackle the knife handle I’ve procrastinated on. We have had a nice kitchen knife for years that really felt good in the hand, held its edge, and sliced very well. However, the handle rotted away and I decided to do my first handle replacement. I had a perfect sized piece of canarywood left over from box construction that will become the new knife handle.
One surprise (see picture) was that the knife tang was a lot smaller that I anticipated. The blade top align...
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1729 days ago
by Eric |
6 comments »
So I had a good couple days in the shop before I packed it all up the other day. Besides doing the cushion frame for my friend, I did a lot of work on my marking knife. The first task was to get the blade satisfactory. In the end, I did this by cutting a 30(ish)-degree bevel on a piece of scrap, and then filed the bevels of the blade along that angle. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good. I then honed the blade on my waterstones, which was a real bear with no honing jig. By the ...
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1733 days ago
by Eric |
5 comments »
Still working on the marking knife. Now I need to drill a small (3/32”) hole for the tang of the blade. Got the bit, but it’s too small for the chuck of my bit brace. I decided to “mount” the bit inside a dowel, and either put the dowel in the bit brace, or just twist the “dowel drill” by hand.
First, I hammered a nail into the dowel, since it was easier than trying to twist the drill bit into the wood by hand. I wasn’t sure if it would split the d...
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1739 days ago
by Eric |
9 comments »
Last week I blogged about making a marking knife from scratch. I had gotten as far as getting a good start on the handle and filing the blade to a point.
Yesterday, I was going to file a bevel onto the blade, hone it, and then work on getting in mounted in the handle. I didn’t quite get that far.
Do you know how hard it is to hand-file bevels onto a spear-pointed knife, so that both sides are even? I found myself overdoing one side, then the other. I made adjustments to the angle ...
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1747 days ago
by Eric |
2 comments »
I was wading through my old woodworking bookmarks, and stumbled across this great guide to making a marking knife. It looked like a fairly easy project, and cheap! Looks like I can take that Japanese marking knife off my wish list. So here we go:
The blade is taken from a jigsaw blade, and it didn’t take too long to file off the teeth:
For the handle, I took a 6” section of kempas scrap that I had lying around. Incidentally, you can see on the bench that I filed the ...
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