MAYBE THE BEST MARKING KNIFE FOR FINE WOODWORKING LAYOUT...

IF YOU READ this blog for long, or talk to me about woodworking, you will hear me name-drop maybe two or three names only, from the vast world of woodworking, furniture and cabinetmaking.  One name in particular is someone I have no hesitation in referencing much as a compass draws its line to magnetic north.  For me, Paul Sellers is someone I look to for knowledge, demonstration of actual craft skills, creative inspiration and also a model of honesty in both the tools of the trade and what really works as you work with wood.  A little over a year ago, I started "training" under Paul via his youtube videos, website, and writings.  I literally feel like I've rediscovered this craft after pursuing it for over 25 years and making a living in it for most of those years.  It's not just learning a few new tricks here and there, but rather seeing a whole way of working that I was already being drawn to intuitively. That way is the way back to hand tool freedom and being in contact with the material itself.  For so many years, I and so many others have been overly consumed with the power tools and how they handle, how they cut, how they feel, what they can force out of the wood for me, and what projects I can and can't take on based on the equipment I have.  I realize I was thinking so much about THE SHOP (as I  say here often) and too much about the equipment, the jigs, the things I need, and especially the time I can or need to save.  Now I think about the wood itself, its grain, its readiness to yield to sharp tools, and what might be if I take up the hand skill and the very tools that were used for maybe a thousand years and longer.  I think about the wooden things (and buildings) made this way that we in this modern age simply cannot match.  We think we're so sophisticated today, and maybe in some technologies we are, I can't say for sure, but never the less all around us is stupidity.  For example, we use words like sustainable and conservation, and green,  and yet instead we plunge onward into more consumption and generally are expert trash creators.  We need to get back to the idea of making something that can last literally 200 years with minimal care.  Furniture built with care and purpose, modest articles of high quality and the subtleties from a previous era.  Things built with the perfect marriage of form and function and that get handed down to our grandchildren.  This is, in my observation, what is true art in the craft.  Too, this is what's sustainable.  This is what is actually "green". Not the making of trash, made only in the pursuit of cheap goods and ever faster methods with less labor and less of humanity embedded in them, unless you count the near slave labor that was expended in their fabrication. How can we bring blessing on ourselves through the exploitation of others?  I say we get back to our "old paths" and let those nations and cultures get back to theirs.   And, by the way, "green" is  not the robotic manufacture and feverish selling of machines with the relentless pursuit of margin and the increasing of the  demand for parts, paraphernalia,  and accessories.  Some things in modern times are better, but I just can't think of one off hand.  (modern medicine I suppose, however I have dramatically less access to it in America than I had 15 years ago...so what good is it to me?)  We often think of former times with the presupposition of the impossibility of "going back to simpler days".  I fear that if we don't go backward in some things now, by choice, then soon we'll be forced to go back suddenly and painfully against our will.  Am I talking some type of doomsday stuff....you better believe I am and I ain't ashamed to say so.

Well, enough pontificating from me and back to my mention of Mr. Sellers.  From his teachings, I have been prompted to try the little stanley knife in the top photo. Used not as a utility knife, but rather as a layout and marking knife this model is a delight to use and works well for striking knife lines for cuts (what Paul calls "knife walls").  It also slips between tight pin recesses in dovetails for precise layout.  So much so is this the knife to use in fine woodworking I wonder how I did without it.  Apparently so many others suddenly think so as well, given the sales activity of this model on Amazon.  Search Paul Sellers and this knife pops up and vice versa.  It is as shown in the above lower picture essential kit in a handful of essential layout tools in my shop.  Replacement blades are readily available on Amazon, and happen to be stocked in some hardware chains such as Ace in my town. So far, I've just touched up the blade slightly on a diamond stone, then stropped lightly. I would not imagine changing the blade for a long time.  I will buy a couple and assure a lifetime of use however.  Surely I could stumble onto another knife I like more, but I can't imagine what it would be without making it myself.

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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.