Mortise marking suggestions.

[Tony Shea]

Outside of Derek's shop made mortise gauge and his incredibly fancy Japanese mortise gauge, I find the Veritas Dual Marking Gauge to be my favorite for use on mortise/tenons. I have the Titemark as well as the two other single blade Veritas wheel marking gauges and still always reach for the Dual Marking gauge for mortises. I also use this gauge if I need to mark something where I want the bevel of the wheel is on the opposite side of a standard marking gauge, ie for marking thickness of a board I'm thicknessing by hand. The Titemark reverse bevel wheel just isn't as nice as the version on the Veritas. The Titemark reverse bevel wheel has a high angle on the wheel and doesn't create as fine of a line as the Veritas.

If I had access and money to pick up a Japanese Kebiki mortise gauge then I'd have no doubt this would be my favorite. I really like the looks of the large registration face and the knife blades look to be amazing. For general layout I prefer my Japanese marking knife over all the other fancy marking knives I have.

[steven c newman]

Used to be...I would just set a combo square up...Mark from both sides of the Mortise, and carry on...Marked with a SHARP No. 2 Pencil...as I needed to see the lines to chop to.

[Cameron Wood]

Here's my assortment.

The two in the foreground I laboriously reground for left handed use. the others must be used right handed, or pushed instead of pulled.
The wheel one is handy for some things, & functions as a depth gauge. The pin one from long ago I never use.
It's good to have multiple for projects that have various different mortises.

IMG_4614.jpg

This is also useful:

IMG_3303.jpg

[Jim Koepke]

This is also useful:

IMG_3303.jpg

This could have notches cut at various points matched to mortise chisels and be an excellent shop made mortise gauge.

jtk

[Cameron Wood]

This could have notches cut at various points matched to mortise chisels and be an excellent shop made mortise gauge.

jtk

Don't be talkin' about filing notches in my Shinwa precision rule!

[Ben Ellenberger]

I bought the 1/4” Tite-mark accessory (don’t have one of their gauges) and have it on a wheel-type marking gauge. The vast majority of my mortises are 1/4”, so I find it handy. For any other size I use an adjustable pin-type gauge, which doesn’t get down to 1/4”.

If I had unlimited space and motivation and made a wider range of things I probably would make several fixed-width gauges for all of my most-common mortise sizes.

[Cameron Wood]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/20449558851...3ABFBM7PKK9YJj

[steven c newman]

I think I have a spare No. 77 that I could send the OP IF he wants one....

Does he want the mortise only version, or the one with the extra point? Have one of each.

[Rob Luter]

I think I have a spare No. 77 that I could send the OP IF he wants one....

Does he want the mortise only version, or the one with the extra point? Have one of each.

Thanks for the offer Steven. Hold off for now. I may break down and try one of the Tite-Mark versions. I reached out to LN and Deneb responded that they are set exactly to the width of their mortise and bench chisels. It would be one less thing for me to screw up.

[Derek Cohen]

Rob, I do not recommend the double mortice wheels for the Tite-Mark gauge. I have them from their inception, andquickly discovered that they spread the downforce, and this reduces the depth of scoring. Keep in mind that one marks the tenon as well as the mortice, and the tenon has endgrain to score. Light mks from a wheel gauge are difficult to see.

The best marking comes a knife gauge (or pins sharpened to knives), in all situations. Wheels are excellent across the grain, but then are weak with the grain and in end grain.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Rob Luter]

Rob, I do not recommend the double mortice wheels for the Tite-Mark gauge. I have them from their inception, andquickly discovered that they spread the downforce, and this reduces the depth of scoring. Keep in mind that one marks the tenon as well as the mortice, and the tenon has endgrain to score. Light mks from a wheel gauge are difficult to see.

The best marking comes a knife gauge (or pins sharpened to knives), in all situations. Wheels are excellent across the grain, but then are weak with the grain and in end grain.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Yup. I revisited an old post where I compared a wheel gauge, a pin sharpened to a spear point, and a cutting style. No contest in White Oak.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....87#post3038687

[Tony Shea]

Rob, I do not recommend the double mortice wheels for the Tite-Mark gauge. I have them from their inception, andquickly discovered that they spread the downforce, and this reduces the depth of scoring. Keep in mind that one marks the tenon as well as the mortice, and the tenon has endgrain to score. Light mks from a wheel gauge are difficult to see.

The best marking comes a knife gauge (or pins sharpened to knives), in all situations. Wheels are excellent across the grain, but then are weak with the grain and in end grain.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I completely agree about the Tite-Mark Mortise wheels as well as the Tite-Mark reverse wheel. For some reason the reverse wheel bevel and the mortise wheel bevels seem to be ground at a high angle compared to the standard wheel. The Veritas Dual Marking Gauge reverse bevel wheel seems to be at a much shallower angle and marks end grain very well. Not sure what Tite-Mark was thinking when they decided to grind the reverse bevel wheel at a different angle compared to the standard wheel.

I absolutely swear by my Veritas Dual Marking Gauge for mortise and tenon work. I will actually change the position of the wheels depending on if I'm marking the tenon or the mortise so the bevel is always on the waste side. I will typically mark a cutoff piece to use as my guide for switching between marking mortises and tenons. Once a piece is marked I can always go back and stick the wheels in the gauge lines and set the gauge up again. I've never had any error creep in from this technique.

I don't recommend using a single gauge and marking your lines by referencing off both faces of the piece. This is how you have errors creep in since the thickness of each piece is rarely exactly the same. It sounds like that's what Stephen is recommending using a combo square. I personally think this is bad practice and will prevent you from having at least one flat surface after assembly. It will also cause joints that are too tight or worst case very sloppy joints.

[steven c newman]

Ok..different shop, different rules....without any SALES PITCH going on....

1)...I almost always make the tenons first
2) ...I will USE that tenon to layout the location of it's mortise
3)....I will mark all around the tenon, when doing the above layout. (High priced tool? No. 2 Pencil)
4)...I will then chop the mortise, with Mallet and Chisel...while I stay INSIDE of the layout lines...
5)...Dry fit...pare IF needed..
6)...continue on with the next one...
A Chopping Day, 1st one done.JPG
YMMV, of course...

[Tony Shea]

Ok..different shop, different rules....without any SALES PITCH going on....

1)...I almost always make the tenons first
2) ...I will USE that tenon to layout the location of it's mortise
3)....I will mark all around the tenon, when doing the above layout. (High priced tool? No. 2 Pencil)
4)...I will then chop the mortise, with Mallet and Chisel...while I stay INSIDE of the layout lines...
5)...Dry fit...pare IF needed..
6)...continue on with the next one...
A Chopping Day, 1st one done.JPG
YMMV, of course...

I'm curious who you think is doing a "Sales Pitch"? I really doubt anyone in this thread has any affiliation with all the brands that are recommended therefore gain nothing from mentioning them.

I'm surprised that you find a #2 pencil a fine enough line for the layout. I would really struggle to nail the fit if I had to work to a standard pencil line with nothing to register my tools into. I find the constant dulling of a standard pencil to cause all sorts of issues with accuracy as the line is always changing width.

[steven c newman]

All depends on HOW one uses a pencil, doesn't it...

In my case, it is because I need to SEE where the line is. Been led astray by grain lines, too many times....Remember...I am leaving the lines, and chopping INSIDE of the lines...

When a response begins with that magic phrase.."Well, I use ( insert brand name here).....I start looking for someone selling Toyotas....Do they still run those Sellathons?