Thread: History of marking knives?

Just my thoughts based on nothing but instinct. I would have thought the forerunner to a marking knife would have been the mortise gauge, both single and double point versions. It left a scribed line in the timber to be either sawn or chiseled from. Add in a handy little invention known as a No. 78 Stanley to the equation and Robert is your mother's brother.
Just my perspective. If I'm wrong, I'll be corrected soon. I just hope my logic concurs.

Tom

Don't listen to me, I don't know b@gger all about this stuff. Soon as I left this thread I had a look at the 'Handmade Tools and Jigs' forum. First thing I read was about making an awl. Undoubtedly invented before both the marking knife and the mortise gauge.
I'm just glad I got to correct myself before someone did it for me. Thanks to the universe.

Look up "striking knife".

I made one like this about 10 years ago from a spade bit. The one below is an original ..



Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks for the contribution anyway Tom!

Derek, do you know where the name striking knife comes from? Where these knives actually meant to be struck (ie like a chisel)? I assume if they were that they would have been used with a turned handle?

Newoodworker, according to Wikipedia the striking knife is preferred for cross grain marking while the scratch awl is recommended for marking along the grain and for making holes to mark drill 'start' places. The scratch awl can also be used across the grain but leaves a rougher line than a striking knife for this application.
Thank you for prompting the research Derek.

Tom

Here is one reference:

3 Things I Like About My Striking Knife | Popular Woodworking Magazine

Regards from Perth

Derek

My woodwork/metalwork teacher in Scotland in the late 50's called it striking a line and used and taught using a bevel edged 1 inch chisel for all woodwork and a striking knife for marking metal - the striking knife was much harder than the chisel and dropping or damaging one resulted in the tawse and extra work to sharpen and retemper it

Neil

Originally Posted by Newoodworker

Im just wondering if someone has any information about the history of marking knives? Are they a relatively modern invention? It seems as though there are very few of them in the second hand/antique market which got me thinking that perhaps the preference in the past was to use pencils etc to mark?

Thoughts?

Nww,
here is a copy of the bottom of page 19 in the 1899 ( eight edition) Mathieson Catalogue.
They go back way into the distant past...as do "pencils".( I have a book on drawing instruments, and pencils as we know them, graphite in wood, were first seen in 1659)

It seems the striking knife from 1899 is in pretty much the identical form they are now.

The same book on drawing instruments illustrates very similar but more decorative devices for ruling lines from Roman times right through the Dark ages and onwards....

Another data point...I have 5 tool chests, and they all contain at least one marking / striking knife. One chest, from a pattern maker, has 3 of them.

Regards,
Peter
Attachment 173354

Hi NWW,

As Peter says, they go way back, the one pictured below is from Smith's Key published around 1816.



The rounded tip on the "Marking Awl" is interesting.

Regards
Ray

Originally Posted by Newoodworker

..Derek, do you know where the name striking knife comes from? Where these knives actually meant to be struck (ie like a chisel)? I assume if they were that they would have been used with a turned handle?

Mmm ... this was not answered.

I assume that the name "Striking Knife" comes from "to strike a line", which means to score a line.

Regards from Perth

Derek

The striking knife from Smith's key has an awl on one end and a knife on the other. I am pretty sure that the rounded end of the awl was just for comfort and was not sharp. I find knifed lines to be more accurate when using chisels as you are in the cut or not, there is no wiggle room so you get crisper joints.
Mike

Thanks all. Very interesting - so it seems that awls and marking knives were quite readily available early in the seen. Makes me wonder why I havent seen one on the second hand market? Is it because people are passing them off as chisels?

I'd imagine that it's a number of factors.

There'd be the fact that most woodies have way more chisels than marking knives/awls. So there's less of them out there in the first place.

Many would find new homes as non-woodworking tools. They're so damned versatile, after all.

A few are probably just so well used that they're basically naught but a pointy handle, not worth selling/listing individually.

And a few will have been abused to death. Opening paint cans, prying nails. Etc, etc.

Finally, as you suggested, there'd be some confusion by the great unwashed as to what they actually are when it comes time to "sell off our late-departed Grand-dad's junk." A serious woody who'd list it accurately wouldn't be selling his marking knife after all!

My thoughts are pretty much identical to yours, Skew....

I'd add one remark - just about any tool with a pointy end and enough left over to hang onto, can be presed into service as a marking tool. I've seen a pretty broad variety of objects converted into marking knives - old table knives would have to figure prominently on the list. It's the same with scratch awls & brad awls. Blokes like my dad who did it tough through the depression rarely threw away anything that could be used in some other role, so old files etc. always had a second life round our place. (I think I caught the bug from him! ). Anyways, my point is that so many marking tools would have been unrecognisable to the unwashed because they looked like some piece of junk that got into the old pot's toolbox by mistake & so it's quite likely, as suggested, they went straight to the bin & not the auction table....

Cheers,