Marking Knife

[Noah Alkinburgh]

I was wondering about purchasing a good marking knife, or maybe making one. Does anyone have any suggestions? ideas?

Thanks

Noah

[Tom Scott]

Last year I purchased my marking knife from Dave Jeske Blue Spruce Toolworks and love it. Besides being beautiful (I got the cocobolo, but you can get others), it has a great feel in the hand. It is also very slender, and long enough for marking out dovetails. Behind my saw, I think this is the next most important tool when I'm cutting dovetails...if you don't have a good crisp line, it doesn't matter how good you saw or chisel.
Not a bad price either @ $35.

Disclaimer - No affiliation, just a happy customer.

Tom

[Dave Anderson NH]

The best ones available for purchase are the ones by Dave Jeske at Blue Spruce Toolworks, Patrick Leach's from Superior Tool, and at a much less expensive level the one from Lee Valley/ Veritas. The left and right set sold by a lot of shops and made by Crown Tools suffers from several problems. First it is lousy steel and won't hold an edge very long. Second the bevel angle is too low and the edge rolls over when sharpening. And finally, having to shuffle 2 knives, a left and right, is just outright inconvenient and wastes a lot of time when you are working.

Making them is pretty easy. An 18" length of O1 tool steel from MSC Industrial Supply is about $5-9 depending on the width and thickness you choose. It will make about 3-6 knives depending on your design. Grind it to shape on your bench grinder, temper and anneal, and insert or rivet to the handle of your choice. I just finished grinding the blades for two of them tonite and will heat treat them if I have time tomorrow nite. The handles are turned from Indian Rosewood and one of them is in the picture in the toolmaking thread on this page that contains my marking gages. It's in the lower right of the photo.

[Jim Becker]

I have one from Lee Valley that I like...although being a power tool junkie (other than my LN low-angle block plane...) I don't use the marking knife much. It's the model that you can use in either direction due to the blade design and has a nice wood handle.

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

But I had a set of jointer knives which were getting a little narrow. I took one of those and fashioned a nice walnut handle to fit in the middle, first grinding the middle of the blade to eliminate the tapered edge. I then cut a shallow dado in each half of the handle and then glued it around the blade. About an inch and a quarter stick out of each end. I then rasped and sanded the handle for a comfortable finger fit and wound up with a right hand and left hand marking knife in one unit. I like it. Maybe I'll post a pic if I can get off the dime.

[Mike Schwing]

While I will admit, regrettably, to having purchased the cheapo Crown one - and getting disgusted with it, I will also admit that I prefer the larger Stanley Xacto knife with break-off blades for marking.

I keep it in one of the apron pockets, and it serves double duty as a knife for cutting things, as a great tool for removing just a skooch of material, etc... and is resharpened with just a "click" of the steel.

[Lars Thomas]

Originally posted by Dave Anderson NH
I just finished grinding the blades for two of them tonite and will heat treat them if I have time tomorrow nite. The handles are turned from Indian Rosewood and one of them is in the picture in the toolmaking thread on this page that contains my marking gages. It's in the lower right of the photo.

Dave, When you posted that pic, I wondered what that was. I figured it wis a plumb line of sorts. Shows how dumb I am. Anyway, please be sure to post a pic or two of you knife when you get it completed. I enjoy seeing your work. Lars

[Steven Wilson]

Ron Hock sells some very good blades that are perfect for marking knives www.hocktools.com