I have a tool that is almost perfect, that I use constantly.  I will search for hours for  it, I am so dependent on  it- a little Japanese Socket Awl.

The big one in the picture above is one of the best made western style scratch awls.  You can pound it, mark with it, start a drill hole with it,  punch some holes with it, and break ice with it.  General did a great job on this tool, and it is fairly inexpensive.   The smaller one I got from Hida Tools.   They don’t list it, but I phoned them and they had a very nice deal on it.  I bought two because I lose these guys.  The small ones are light enough to hold in place when lightly jabbed into a board.

The Top one is the one I love best, although functionally it is pretty much the same as the smaller one.  I got one from Schtoo and fell in love with it.  I named it ‘Pointy.’  I probably spent a total of 10 hours looking for the thing over the  month or so I had it.  Finally I lost it.  The thing is fabulous, the perfect marking tool, with one huge fatal flaw.  It is a ninja tool.  It disappears, blends in, fades out without trace.  I got these from the Ebay Store, EastToolWest.   The Japan Woodworker has the awl I love and an even larger one, that I have not tried.

I bought another, named it ‘Jabby,’ and lost it in a week.   So now I have four Japanese Scratch awls, just in case.  The current one I use is named ‘Stabby,’ but I keep a smaller one handy, ‘Stabby Jr., because I like working with two of them.  The great thing about this tool is that I can push it in where I want to scribe a mark, Line up the straight edge to it, take it out and make the mark.  This gives me fast precision marks.  Two of these will let me line up two lines, and speeds me up even more.

Or they would speed me up If I didn’t lose them instantly.  So enough was enough, I had to improve this tool.

Here is about half a quart of vinegar, half a quart of water and five packages of Kool-Aid.  Don’t get this on your shirt, it will  stay there.

The stuff I am using here is Black Cherry Kool-Aid.  It makes a deep lovely color, if you use less vinegar and less water so it is more concentrated.   In this case I wanted the color to be rich but bright, so I went for a lower concentration.

The wooden ball was dyed with it about eight years ago, and has been in weather and even played with by a dog.  It has lost some of the original vibrance, but dyes, unlike good pigments fade over time.  I will be pretty happy if I can keep track of these tools long enough to notice them fade.

Notice the nice bright cherry red hue on two of the handles.  They were boiled for about ten minutes.  The smaller blade turned black,  vinegar causes a type of rust that is black.  Some old timers used to use vinegar to put just this finish on a blade.  This black finish will actually give a certain level  of self healing, protection from other rust.  So I don’t mind it at all.  Stainless Steel or Chrome will not discolor as easily, that is why the larger one is not discolored.

Boiling the wood expands it, so I was able to remove the blades from the wood.

This shows them to be a simple enough project, so next time I may just make my own.

I super glued the ones I pulled apart back together, and then I boiled them for a bit in my wax mix to preserve them and boil out the water a  bit.

Here is the finished product,

Used to be these tiny tools would hide better than anything amongst the  wood, wood shavings, and parts.  Now they stand out a bit more,

The tiny red tool is much easier to find than it used to be.  The file with a handle the same shade as the original awl, was dropped onto the shavings from the same height.  Despite burrowing in a bit, the awl is still quick to spot.

Bob