Thread: Panel marking gauge

Javali,
Good use of spare time there.
Masonary nails are good steel and have been used for this before.
Regards
John

Originally Posted by javali

I had some spare time yesterday, so I built myself a panel marking gauge.

Timbers used are vic. ash, and a piece of some unrecognised NSW hardwood. Finished with Danish oil.

The marker is a steel nail. I would appreciate suggestions on where I can get a better marker.

javali,
Nice work!
Drop into your local manufacturing jeweller and ask for a broken or blunt drill or burr from the flexdrive suspension drill. They are 2.3mm dia. and about 50mm long, and I find they are just the thing. If it's not possible to get them and you want to try them out, just send a PM with your address and I can put 10 or more into an envelope. I have just blunted or broke 6 to do a job, and they are already tapered down to 0.7mm.
You can heat them to blue, and when cool file them, and then heat the end to red and quench in water for a nice hard tip. You can even do it easily over the gas stove if you don't have a torch.
Regards,
Peter

Javali - a useful bit of kit!

You can use broken small drill bits. Chuck it in your battery drill & run it on the grinder to make any sort of taper & point you like. Since it's HSS, you can get it pretty hot without tempering it much.

I prefer ordinary steel for pins, myself. Small nails are easy to file & shape once fitted. Some of mine are 20 plus years old & have scribed thousands of lines in all sorts of wood, & still going strong. If they ever do wear out (in the next lifetime or two) they will be easily replaced for virtually no outlay, so not sure why you would want anything harder, unless you are marking metal?? The other consideration for a panel gauge is that half your marks will be made cross-grain so a cutting pin is probably better....

Cheers,

Nice tool. For scribing pins, I haved used the small hardened steel masonry pins intended for hanging small pictures.

Originally Posted by IanW

Javali - a useful bit of kit!

You can use broken small drill bits. Chuck it in your battery drill & run it on the grinder to make any sort of taper & point you like. Since it's HSS, you can get it pretty hot without tempering it much.

Excellent idea! Now I can do something with the small, bunged-up bits in the junk drawer. I use a drill doctor on the big ones. The small ones, I think are cheaper to replace than spend the time and electricity to sharpen.

Thanks everyone. I guess I will leave the current nail in there, and if it wears out too soon I will replace it with something better.

Looks good mate.

An idea you may like to play with. probably already know it. something to talk about in anycase.......is halve some dowel or something like, and glue them spaced on one of the fences one each side of the arm there and you can use it for scribing off curves as well.uno just flip the body around. I do that with old marking guages I pick up cheap.