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Marking knives

3K views 26 replies 20 participants last post by  AlaskaGuy 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
So jocks its time for a new marking knife. What kinds do you prefer and what is the best you have used. I will be making my new one, so I'm looking for a inspiration. Tell or show me the best please. As always thank you in advance for reading and any comments made good or bad.
 
#3 ·
Although making one is great and I certainly wouldn't discourage it, I recently read a post here about using a scalpal which led to a purchase of (100) #10 blades which came with a free scalpal and absolutely love using it with and across grain, slicing and cleaning, using and abusing… 100 blades was something like $10 and they are scary sharp coming out of the wrappers. Had a number of options I was unfamiliar with and still am #6 through #60 with different sizes and shapes. Might be worth looking into, perhaps using a disposable blade design for your new marking knife. Look forward to seeing what you come up with…
 
#17 ·
I have one of Rob Cosman's dovetail markers which is bit on the bulky side but has great registration. I recently replaced the blade with a toothed version made from a piece of bandsaw blade (by Rob) which is for his new dovetail cutting technique. Basically the marker starts the kerf for the dovetails so that it's dead-on.


Aside from that i have a veritas striking knife which has a horrible plastic handle but use my home depot box razor more than that:


Hopefully some day i'll buy a lathe and make my own. That seems to be the way to go.
 
#18 ·
Travis I will take a sharpy and layout three blades to cut out and use a 4" grinder with a cutting wheel to make the cuts. Then shape the blades with a file or a brown pad on the grinder or maybe some sand paper. After that I will polish and reharden the blades. After that I will temper each blade to a different hardness to see how hard I will like the blade to be. then its time to make the handles which will all be different so I can see what fits in my hands(I wear a 3x in gloves) comfortably. So not hard I'm thinking maybe 30 to 45 minutes per unit. You should try some metal work it's always better to know a little about a lot then a lot about a little.
 
#21 ·
I recently switched to one of these after taking a class at The Woodwright school.

http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/2001789/3955/Chip-Carving-Knife-Style-A.aspx

The great thing about these is that you can register the entire side of the blade against your work when marking since there is no secondary bevel and you can rest your figure on the top of the knife and push down. The only real downside I have encountered is that you can get so much leverage that you can split end grain pieces when marking if you get to aggressive but you have a lot of ability to make good marks. I have a long striking knife that is double beveled and it's a good marking knife but I find the carving knife more flexible with it's stiff longer blade and not having flip the knife every time you want to mark a different side.

Something to consider.
 
#22 ·
The Veritas Striking knife http://www.leevalley.com/en/Wood/page.aspx?p=69870&cat=1,42936,42949&ap=1 is the best I've found for marking dovetails. Cheap, about $10 USD each, a sharp flexible blade so it registers very easily. If you drop it or it dulls it is cheap enough to throw away and use a new one. I also use the chip-carving knife linked by Richard Hillius for marking shoulders. Each operation has different needs and while you can make one knife do both jobs, two will do a better job.
 
#25 ·
These all look great! Just don't make the mistake I did on my first one! I made my own blade from a hack saw blade, turned the handle, and didn't plan it out very well lol. I cut the blade too short…makes it a lot harder to maneuver around the straight edge since the handle gets in the way…esp if you tilt it at all
 
#26 ·
Travis no problem. The only way to learn is hands on. To everyone else thanks for all of the replies. Travis look into some black smithing books, there are a few good ones out there. I know we are on the interwebs but the smell and feel of a good book is unbeatable.
 
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