Marking Knifes

My go-to knife for marking joinery has always been a humble x-acto knife. I recently came across Matt Estlea's iteration of David Barron's marking knife design. This knife uses a disposable blade made by Swann Morton. These blades are replaceable like an x-acto blade but slightly thicker, stiffer and longer: they are slim enough to get into tight spaces but tough enough to do a fair amount of corner clean-up. These blades come in a few shapes, but the 01 version in which the cutting edge is parallel to the handle somehow seems more useful than the typical V shaped craft knife blades. These blades are double beveled, so some people will not find them suitable for some tasks (like transfering dovetails) - I've always found it more comfortable to rotate a double bevel knife right or left rather than upwards like you have to do with a single bevel knife.

Since Matt admittedly took inspiration from (copied) David, I figured it was not unreasonable to take inspiration from (copy) Matt and make a version of my own. I've connected with Matt and sent him a sample: I look forward getting his feedback. I've been having fun tweaking the design a bit, finally using scraps of exotic woods from the bins, and figuring out some processes for making in small batches. I gave the handle a slim cigar shape with flats on both sides which keeps it from rolling off the bench and gives a reference to the orientation of the blade. To me this shape feels good in the hand and has a nice balance: it is on the delicate side, but I don't tend to work a knife too hard, so I don't see this as a problem. Making a batch of these gave me an excuse to add a small Unimat metal lathe to the tool arsenal but doing that has me thinking I should try to cover the cost of the new tool by selling some of the knifes. So far I've made a couple batches of 20 which are mostly going to friends and colleagues I'm also putting a couple a week on that big auction site.

There are a bunch of process videos on Instagram if you're interested in how I've made these. https://www.instagram.com/gonnamakesomething/

I'm starting another batch soon. I'm hoping I can get my production time down and maybe offer the hardware as a kit for people who want to turn their own handles.

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