Bob

Bob

But I’m still wondering what’s this “Wax Mix” ¿Is that a secret of yours?

Hehe Thanks.

The scratch awl, is the marking knife. It leaves a nice clear cut, Ignores grain better than most knives, and does not have the chance of shaving the straight edge that a casually used marking knife has.

Normally with a pencil a carpenter draws a ‘bird beak’ with the point marking the line. Then he lines up a straight edge with the point of the beak and then draws the line. This is very clear, but not very precise. Great for construction, iffy for furniture making, horrible for fine work such as dovetails or tool making.

With a marking knife, the wood is lined up to be measured, and a small cut is made to show where to mark the line. The straight edge is brought in, close to the line and the knife is then used, guided by the straight edge to make an incision. This line is perhaps harder to see in poor light than the pencil mark, but it is thinner and more precise. Additionally the cut line can be used prevent the grain from chipping out. This is a serious improvement. You have to be careful not to take a shaving off the straight edge as you use it, and you have to be quite firm and pay attention to grain to make sure the knife doesn’t wander. Pencils and awls can both wander with grain too, but are much more resistant to the effect. I any case the marker should be ‘dragged’ and the direction the mark is made in should be such that the grain will push the marker toward the straight edge instead of guiding the marker away from the straight edge.

The scratch awl can be stuck in, right where you want the mark. The straight edge can then be slid right up to the scratch awl, registering where to mark and the offset position perfectly. The awl is then used at an angle so the tip is dragged. It makes a nice clean line, a bit more visible than a marking knife, but perhaps less deep.

A marking knife can then be used if a deeper cut is needed. An example would be if you want to prevent chip out, on a course grained wood, and need a deep marking.

Apart from a few instances such as that, in my opinion, a small scratch awl is a superior tool for general use.

Bob

To use them as you describe, you mark between them with a knife I presume????

And you must be marking a lot of lines - to cut or whatever…

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