Digital marking gauge? Interesting idea.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Technically this is still unplugged, since it doesn't have a cord. I find it to be an interesting idea. It's not that I am marking fractions of an inch to the 1000th, but rather that it is a quick and easy way to accurately Mark any measurement.

356331

[Derek Cohen]

Malcolm, at first sight it is interesting and tempting: set a specific measurement and then score it. However, have you ever used a digital gauge to set a measurement - which it not the same as measuring with a digital gauge?

I have a digital gauge on my tablesaw. It s pretty accurate, and repeatable. But it is a bugger to set it to, say, 32mm. It wants to 31.99 or 31.87 or 33.14 ... So, do you become obsessional and strive for the .00? Or do you just accept "close enough"?

My own preference is to scribe a line off the edge of scrap, and set the gauge on that.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Yes, I agree with your points, Derek. It took me a while to embrace digital tools. I rarely need to mark a line this accurately anyway. So what if a tenon shoulder is off a wee bit- the key is that you measure the mortise off the tenon, or vise versa. It is, however, a nice way to set the cutter to a specified depth. To answer your question, I would accept close enough 99.9873% of the time.

[Jim Koepke]

My woodworking became better as my measuring started to use comparison and story sticks and stopped using tape measures and 1/32".

It looks to me like a solution searching for a problem.

jtk

[Tom Vanzant]

IMHO, digital is for measuring, not marking.
Is iGaging trying to beat Rob to the punch?

[Malcolm Schweizer]

IMHO, digital is for measuring, not marking.
Is iGaging trying to beat Rob to the punch?

That's funny.


I won't be buying one. I just thought it was a neat idea. I have the one with the markings on the rod, and never use those. I mark my tenons using the ruler I used to build the items, then set the gauge to the tenon. One thing this would be good for is if you needed to thin a tenon by "x" you could set the gauge to "x" and scribe a line.

[Jim Koepke]

[edited]
One thing this would be good for is if you needed to thin a tenon by "x" you could set the gauge to "x" and scribe a line.

This would require a way to measure the mortise to determine the "x" to be removed from the tenon. Sounds like one might need a couple more digital gauges to figure out how to set this one.

My plan is to continue doing the way it has always been done, by hand and eye.

jtk

[Mike Henderson]

I always seem to be working off something. For example, if I'm doing dovetails, I set the gauge to the thickness of the other piece of wood, whatever that that thickness is.

But in thinking about improvements to marking gauges, one thing I'd like to see is a double ended marking gauge - where each end has the "micro adjustment". Lee Valley sells a double ended marking gauge but it's not micro adjustmentable.

And why double ended? Because when you're doing dovetails you often need two measurements. For half blind you definitely need two measurements and for through dovetails you need two if the two pieces of wood are different thickness.

If someone made a double ended marking gauge, it would be nice if they colored the two ends different colors to help identify which is which.

Mike

[Tom Vanzant]

My plan is to continue doing the way it has always been done, by hand and eye.

jtk

Yep, that's the way!