Another marking knife option

[ian maybury]

For what it's worth/it's not necessarily mainstream but i saw this cable splicer's knife while in the local electrical wholesalers the other day, and bought one to play with: http://www.kleintools.com/catalog/ca...plicers-knife#

Not sure how it will eventually work out, but it's got some features i seem to be gravitating towards for a marking knife for some jobs - a thick 2.25mm thick x 13.5mm wide x 42mm sharpened length blade in what feels like a nicely finished and decent piece of hardened and tempered steel ground in a single V from the cutting edge to the back edge, a straight cutting edge, and a square tip with a radiused corner. It not the cheapest ever...

Playing with various craft knives as a basis for marking knives suggests that they are too thin to grind in a nice flat single V as above so that they lie flat against a wood edge or a rule. (with just a small sharpening bevel both sides so it doesn't shave the wood or the rule) If ground that way the edge ends up being far too fragile and flexible, and anyway would cut a line so fine as to be almost invisible. Left stock the short sharpening bevel the makers put on steps the face of the blade too far away from the wood or the rule.

A thick knife can still be very sharp, but when the V angle is still large enough it means that pushing down a little harder significantly widens the line. Plus it's nice and rigid. It's probably not by accident that traditional marking knives are thick and sharpened to a single sided steep bevel.

I'm not a fan of the pointed shape of a traditional marking knife - after too many years of using an Xacto pattern point knife i prefer the way a straight cutting edge tracks as its drawn along the rule. The almost square tip/high back (I'll probably grind it to a slope of about 45deg to help with getting the tip right up against the end of a slot as in say a dovetail - what's sometimes called a lamb's foot shape) means that it's enough to show over 1/2 in stock...

PS should have said that it'll need a little bit of fine tuning of the shape of the blade, but nothing the waterstones won't handle..

[Matt Lau]

http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/pag...332,43339&ap=1

I just use the sharp point replacement blade myself.

[Archie England]

This one works well, too. Nice heavy tool steel, thick (3/32) and well done. Just another option.
http://www.rockler.com/igaging-premium-marking-knife

However, I'm into making them from old spade bits now. It's fun, cheap, and provides that feeling of accomplishment that I need for finishing something along the way.

[ian maybury]

Thanks guys. I'm not expert, but seem to find myself playing around with options - if nothing else there's a few different situations. That LV item looks like a good basis for experimentation Matt. The only problem for me is that they charge lots for trans-Atlantic shipping, while the local distributors seem only to carry mostly the branded stuff.

I have a smaller and longer bladed version in the trad form a bit like the Rockler example but by Chester Tools Archie. As before i spent many years doing different sorts of modelling related work with an Xacto pattern pointed knife, and as a result find find it awkward to lift the handle as high as seems to be required on the wider angled types - I ended up regrinding the Chester to a more narrowly angled point..

[David Bassett]

Yoav Liberman wrote about marking knife options on the Pop Wood editor's blog. He mentioned two Olfa craft knives, among others, that were cheap, good, and could do the job. I ordered both from Amazon to try. The handles aren't great to hold, but the larger one (#34B, $6.07 delivered the day I ordered) has a blade very similar to that LV knife linked above. Since mine shipped from Japan, you might have an easier time of getting it in Ireland. And, as wood workers, we could fix the handle if we wanted.

[lowell holmes]

I have several marking knives, but I keep reverting to using a box cutter. That's what we used in some furniture making with hand tools classes I attended years ago. It leaves a crisp line and I find it to be more precise. It is especially nice for marking cross grain. You can achieve Paul Sellers' knife wall with it easily.

[Steve Kang]

A number #8 chip carving knife has won me over. Traditional marking knives are almost too sharp and surgical.