My first marking gauge I got from a retiring patternmaker. The shaft is a hex and when it gets dull I just turn it one 6th of a turn and now a sharp part of the wheel. The shaft is a little long for 98% of the work I do but I have resisted shortening it. The body is about 6 inches long and that really helps it from not wandering, especially when the marking wheel is out quite a ways. The other thing I like and don't like at the same time is the shaft is at a slight angle so it helps pull the base tight against the reference edge as does the angle of the marking wheel, if one is using the right hand. Left handed I have to be careful. The plane body in the picture is a #5 and it is for showing length.
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Next I bought a round marking gage. I cut it in a couple of places so It would fit in the drawer. But the thing I am not to fond of is, if the marking wheel is to far out it is hard to get hard to get enough force on the wheel to mark very well. Also wheels do not mark pine very well at all.
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And I have been using a marking knife I made for some time now. I like using it , works well and easy to sharpen.
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Since I like the knife so well I decided to retro fit a marking gauge friend made using an exacto knife for a blade. A tip an exacto knife blade sucks in a marking gauge.
I am just now putting it through its paces and so far I like it real well. Even real far out the shaft can set on the corner and the cut ( marking) can can be accomplished by twisting the gauge. The depth is easily controlled by pressure on the twist.
Things I like about it is:
I can make a longer head like my original gauge
I can make shafts of any different lengths
I can add a pencil to a shaft and make it into a panel gauge
I can make heads with different angles ( right or left handed ) to help keep the head
against the reference edge.
And I can cut masking tape so that at my age I can see the line when sawing dovetails
without really marking the wood and I can come back later and remark for my chisel to
fit in
This is my prototype There are a couple of things I want to work on as far as the cutter and head go.
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Cutter can be turned around for different types of positioning.