A MARKING GAUGE YOU WILL LIKE AND USE...

WHEN I THINK  of all the  tools in my little shop, I would have a hard time coming up with my favorite.  I suppose a #4 hand plane or sharp chisels would be right near the top.  Close behind though would be layout, measuring and marking tools.  No matter what your preference in the discussion of hand tools vs power, marking tools seem to be equally important to either.  No matter what your method to cut, where you cut is of supreme importance.  A marking gauge is not just handy...it's essential to detail work.  If you say you get by everyday without it, I submit to you one of two things:  you are substituting another method, such as a ruler and knife (which is ok by me, but slower and less consistant) or you simply are not to the point that you are in fact doing fine work.  The gauge in these pictures is one you can make very cheaply and it will at least bridge the gap to a more expensive and finely made tool.  For my work, I still reach for it as often as my factory made gauges made by crown and footprint.  This gauge is made from rift-sawn white oak I salvaged during a local school remodel.  the boards were likely some of the original baseboards and window casing from the 1908 original construction.  They had maybe ten coats of paint on one side with varnish under that.  I'll tell you how I scraped them in another post with ordinary paint scrapers and card scrapers.  This is not nearly the ugly task it  sounds like it would be.  The beam is about 12 inches long by 7/8 square.  I put a brass bar on the top in a slim mortise to take the wear of the thumbscrew.  The cutter is a washer filed and ground with a dremel tool so as to have a rounded sharp edge on the bottom for a marking action that is more in the way of cutting than scratching as with the typical gauge.  Incidently, if you purchase a gauge, be informed of the difference between a cutting gauge and a marking gauge- which in western tradition has a pin prick that scratches a line rather

than cutting a line. Your needs will vary according the material you work with, with softer woods generally not scratching as cleanly as hard woods.  If you only had one gauge, I would have one with a cutting action for the most versatility.  Better teachers than me might readily disagree.  That would be good for you if you're a novice, thus giving you the excuse to buy both and then reaping the benefits of either when needed.  Meantime, why not try to make your own since it requires so little money and builds good skills into your arsenal of technique.  I made this in about an hour, and I wouldn't doubt you could far surpass the look of mine if you try.  Some of the ones on youtube are downright beautiful and seem very useful as well.  The usability is most important, and I ask you to trust me when I say mine is excellent in use, albeit not as pretty as one might make it with an exotic wood and more brass.  The washer works fine as a cutter, though I might find other thickness options and hardness options in washers to make one for even finer lines. This one works great and is set to just below the beam.  Really, a hair over 1/32 of cutter depth is enough.  Too much cutter hanging below the beam doesn't help the overall use.  In store bought marking gauges I usually pull the pin prick  up shallower and find they are easier to use.  Some people pull them out and reinstall them altogether with more of a trailing angle compatible with whichever hand they use the most and the direction they like, whether pulling or pushing. 

The guide or body of the tool is matching oak in the same thickness roughly, though the size and heft of the tool are totally up to your preference for balance and weight.  I wanted something a little longer and more robust for the occasional times when I do larger work (such as a beefier workbench down the road with heavy joinery).  Yes the beam must pass through a carefully laid out and cut square mortised through the body with enough snugness to work accurate and perpendicular, and enough slop to slide smoothly to different settings.
If you are new to chopping mortises, I suggest you look at the videos by Paul Sellers on technique, since I believe them to be the best teaching available.  Here on a small scale is the exercise of careful layout and mortising of the beam's profile in the center of the body using a knife and tracing the four sides of the beam.  It should go without saying, the beam has to be cut straight and square.  If you shape the body with curves as I did, do that after you do the mortise.  Having the body square or rectangular makes it easier to transfer the mortise layout to the other side.  Remember to chop half way in from both sides, working carefully and taking small bites.  Your chisel, as always, should be razor sharp, and the cutting edge should mostly be crossways to the grain in this application.  If the size is 7/8 as mine was, then use a 3/4 chisel and sneak up on the layout lines. A beveled chisel will shift in a hole as it's driven in.  It follows the path of least resistance in accord with the bevel.  Think of the physics of the thing and it'll make perfect sense to you even if you're new to mortising and chisel work.  Drilling a large hole to facilitate mortising is a common practice and touted by many as the way to do it.  In practice it works poorly for me and really never saves me time or adds to my precision.  I will add that this practice was not normally done in historical joinery except on the largest of joints where common chisel sizes were so much smaller than the hole.  Waste was removed from the middle and the chisel did the rest, mostly by paring.  On a little mortise such as this, I doubt the advantages of drilling at all, but you can try it and weigh in with your opinion. 

 Drill the pilot hole for the threaded insert after you cut the mortise, but do so in a way you can go at it gently and straightly.  I can drill it with a battery drill as long as I hold the thing in a vise.  A drill press is great if you have access to one, but you still need to hold it some way so your hands are safely out of the way.  An insert is easy with one warning.  It needs a hole just oversized....small enough to bite, but big enough that you don't have to fight it.  It must go in straight and not leaning to one side.  Try a test hole on another piece, since they are actually removable.  Some have an allen wrench hole to screw it in and others need a screw that is double nutted to it to drive it in.  In very dense woods, I wouldn't doubt you could tap the wood itself and forego the insert.  They say the slotted brass ones have the slot NOT for using a screwdriver to screw it in, but rather the slot goes down and does the cutting in the wood ahead of the threads that screw into the wood.  I've tried it both ways and been successful, so I can't say for sure.  


  You can scrape or sand the beam to the final fit and function, just be aware of being too aggressive with your work on the beam and removing the crisp corners and squareness of fit needed for accuracy.  The thumbscrew tightens the body in place using a brass screw insert of 1/4-20 thread.  The brass bar, insert, and  thumbscrew are easily had from any decent hardware store, Ace Hardware in my case.  I don't think you'll have 5 dollars in the parts total.  I did fit the brass bar less pretty and tight than what I intended (in too much of a hurry), but it is epoxied in place and will not come off.  I rubbed the whole thing in Danish oil because that's what I had handy but use your finish of choice or even paste wax.    For joinery, I can't live without a marking/cutting gauge, and I enjoy it more when it's one of the several I've made myself.