Mr C delivers....who needs a Titemark anyway?

[Joel Moskowitz]

It does on a scratchstock - what's the difference? Genuine question, not a challenge, I hasten to add. To be honest I wasn't aware the art of pivoting on the beam had been lost. One of those things that's apparently so insignificant no-one bothers to make a big deal of it?

On a scratchstock you take multiple passes to slowly feed the blade into the work. On a marking guage you piviot the beam to give you the particular amount of pressure you want on the particular single pass of the gauge. the long pin keeps the bottom of the beam, radiused or not far away from the wood. So you tilts on a corner.

I am glad to hear that you don't think the art of pivoting a beam is lost. But I guess it is under the radar.

 

[MikeW]

Yeah, I never knew it was lost either. Was how I was taught and how I teach at hand tool classes.

But unlike Joel, I don't sell the widgets to so many people who have either never read or been taught how to use one.

Hey Alf, trust me. If I saw a nice condition vintage one [or user-made new one :wink: ] I wouldn't bother to make one either. You should see my tuit list of widgets to make myself one day. Another marking gauge is pretty low on the totem pole.

Take care, Mike

 

[woodbloke]

Joel - with a standard gauge you can indeed pivot on a corner of the stem, but to see accurately what you are doing, you need a very long pin which builds in inaccuracy...I know 'cos all the gauges in my teaching shop had pins that were about 1/4" long, ok for the kids but not for serious work. A gauge where the pin pivots on the diagonal is still used in the same way, but the distance between the pin and the edge of the stem is now next to nothing which makes for far greater control over the gauge. Over the last 35 years I have used the former traditional gauge, a pin on the diagonal offers so much more control over the tool that you won't believe it 'till you spend 5 minutes and make one - Rob

 

[Joel Moskowitz]

Sorry,
as long as my eyeball is on the same side as the pin, and I am pushing the gague away from me I can see it perfectly (see diagram above). Actually the longer the pin the better within reason. And as long as the pin is solid in the beam the measurement is solid no matter how long or short the pin is. I don't see where the inaccuracy could come from. and I think I do serious work and I think I do it accurately.
My guess is that you don't use the traditional gauge in the same way I do.

 

[MikeW]

Yep, I'm a longer pin guy myself. I just looked and I suspect my mortise gauge pins stick out an 1/8" to 3/16", perhaps a little longer. Never thought to measure them--even now the urge didn't strike me. :wink:

I like pushing the gauge away--tis proper just like cutting tails first :lol:
But like DTs, sometimes I pull the gauge and cut pins first...

Take care, Mike

 

[bugbear]

no mike - not the same thing as a wedged clamping mechanism. I mean a slightly offsquare beam so that when a thumbscrew is tighted down it wedges against the square hole in the fence in two dimensions so that is doesn't wobble. I don't recall anyone commerically offering that design earlier than Clenton's oviously fairly recent innovation.

As I understand it (conformation or denial welcome) the Clenton design work like this, so that as the screw is tightened (big red arrow) the shaft pivots around the lower left corner, and the upper right corner is wedged. The entire shaft is thus immobile.

Note the that is wide tolerance in this design for movement in the wood and/or inaccuracy in manufacture. In Colin's shipped gauges I don't think there's much of the latter.


BugBear

 

[Adam]

Further to the recent interesting thread on marking gauge mods, the latest copy of F&C dropped onto the mat this morning inside which were the latest current thoughts of Mr C on marking gauges, amongst other interesting stuff yet to be devoured.

Can I just add my thanks. I've never really spent much time thinking about this before, but I thought the article was nice and clear - and obvious enough for even me to make a modification!

Adam

 

[woodbloke]

I was having a nose round Penny Farthing Tools t'other day, not looking for anything in particular :roll: and I spotted a couple of old gauges with the wedge going transversely thru' the stock, but these ones had an additional saddle on top of the stem. So as the wedge is pushed home it bares on the saddle and the extra area of contact provides an instant and secure lock. It was interesting to make tho' not one I care to repeat in a hurry...cutting a 6mm wide tapered mortice thru' rosewood with 3mm chisel is not recommended.

The gauge has the chunkie DC style modified pin set on the diagonal and is easy to use. The stock locks solidly onto the stem with absolutely no wobble - Rob

 

[bugbear]

I was having a nose round Penny Farthing Tools t'other day, not looking for anything in particular :roll: and I spotted a couple of old gauges with the wedge going transversely thru' the stock, but these ones had an additional saddle on top of the stem. So as the wedge is pushed home it bears on the saddle and the extra area of contact provides an instant and secure lock. It was interesting to make tho' not one I care to repeat in a hurry...cutting a 6mm wide tapered mortice thru' rosewood with 3mm chisel is not recommended.

The gauge has the chunkie DC style modified pin set on the diagonal and is easy to use. The stock locks solidly onto the stem with absolutely no wobble - Rob

I don't understand how the saddle helps - could you expand?

(BTW, nice looking work, and I sympathise on the mortise cutting, having had to cut widdy mortices when making/converting cutting gauges, and that was only in beech)

BugBear

 

[David C]

Bugbear,
Thanks for the excellent diagram of the Clenton anti wobble trick.
I did make sure to say I learned this from him.

Joel,
The modified pin is the same as Colen's though I was using it before he started making. It now functions as a mini cutting gauge and works both with and across the grain.

The sloped pin, approx 75 degrees, exits on the corner of the stem, which is relieved with a round file. This provides good visibility if one wishes to start and stop shoulder lines neatly for dovetail work. (many craftsmen do not and are happy to leave the line in the finished work). I prefer my pins to protrude not much more than 1.5 mm, which is the deepest cut I need. This thought originates with Krenov, though he likes even less.

I can see how a long pin would allow sight but it does also reduce contact with the stock face. Your point about the leading edge being used as a pivot for controlling depth of cut is spot on, (and always taught here), this is one of the slight issues with the cutting disc gauges.

The point of the article was to explain how to get very good performance out of a very cheap gauge, with a little tuning, as most of the good gauges are very expensive. It is good practice to have several and preserve settings until the work is finished.

I am so glad people have found this topic interesting, crisp, perfectly cut gauge lines are necessary for accurate joinery.

best wishes,
David

 

[woodbloke]

BB - I'll try. Consider a transversely wedged gauge without a saddle. As the wedge is engaged the bearing surface on top of the stem is only the small section of the underside of the wedge, say 6mmx20mm ( the thickness of the wedge x the width of the stem).
When a saddle is introduced the initial 6x20mm bearing surface is transferred through the saddle to the top of the stem. The underside of the saddle in this case is about 20 x 35mm so there's allot more area of contact. Also, the saddle helps to ensure that the stem seats securely onto the bottom surface of the stem mortice and so any wobble of the stock/stem combination is zero. I was pleasantly surprised at the huge improvement the addition of a saddle makes. Hope this explains my thinking...but then again its probably as clear as mud - Rob

 

[Joel Moskowitz]

I can see how a long pin would allow sight but it does also reduce contact with the stock face. Your point about the leading edge being used as a pivot for controlling depth of cut is spot on, (and always taught here), this is one of the slight issues with the cutting disc gauges.

David,
I certainly agree with you on wheeled gauges but I don't see how a long pin reduces contact with the stock face. I am bearing down on the stock with the entire long edge of the beam. With a short pin at the front, unless the pin is pushed into the work you also only get contract at the long edge of the beam. In addition the lower angle of the beam cuts one's view of what's about to be scribed and I like, as you say, to aviod scribing lines what might show on the finished work. With a long pin and the beam tilteed at a higher angle I can easily see under the beam and make sure I don't overshoot the mark. (I am blind as bat and a real impovement would be to add a little battery powered LED under the beam so I can see what I'm doing )

The point of the article was to explain how to get very good performance out of a very cheap gauge, with a little tuning, as most of the good gauges are very expensive. It is good practice to have several and preserve settings until the work is finished.

I think just about all the lower end marking gauges work well enough out of the box. I'm not arguing that there is no room for improvement but the problem is mostly people not knowing how to use them efficently - I think within the year we will be including instructions with all the guages we sell. But I would certainly agree - the Clenton wedging tweak can make a cheap wobbly gauge work super solidly with a minimum of effort. And I would certainly agree that while it's nice to have a nice primary gauge when working, having a series of gauges available for setting and leaving set is the way to go.

joel