A marking knife or striking knife is a
woodworking
Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, woodworking joints, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning.
History
Along with Rock (geology), stone, clay and animal parts, ...
layout tool used for accurately marking workpieces.
It is used to cut a visible line, which can then be used to guide a
hand saw
In woodworking and carpentry, hand saws, also known as "panel saws", are used to cut pieces of wood into different shapes. This is usually done in order to join the pieces together and carve a wooden object. They usually operate by having a ser ...
,
chisel
A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge (such that wood chisels have lent part of their name to a particular grind) of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, stru ...
or
plane
Plane(s) most often refers to:
* Aero- or airplane, a powered, fixed-wing aircraft
* Plane (geometry), a flat, 2-dimensional surface
Plane or planes may also refer to:
Biology
* Plane (tree) or ''Platanus'', wetland native plant
* ''Planes' ...
when making
woodworking joints
Joinery is a part of woodworking that involves joining pieces of wood, engineered lumber, or synthetic substitutes (such as laminate), to produce more complex items. Some woodworking joints employ mechanical fasteners, bindings, or adhesives, ...
and other operations.
They are generally used when marking across the grain of the wood, with
scratch awls better suited for marking with the grain.
Description
The blades on marking knives are made of
tool steel
Tool steel is any of various carbon steels and alloy steels that are particularly well-suited to be made into tools and tooling, including cutting tools, dies, hand tools, knives, and others. Their suitability comes from their distinctive har ...
, have either a skewed end or a spear point, and the knife edge is bevelled on either one side of the blade or both sides. On single-bevel skewed knives the side of the blade that is bevelled dictates whether the knife is for left-handed or right-handed use, while single-bevel spear point knives are suited to both.
Some marking knives incorporate a marking knife blade at one end, and a scratch awl tip at the other end – but because of this they are sometimes considered dangerous to use.
Marking knives are either made from a single piece of steel, or additionally have a handle made of wood or plastic.
Some woodworkers make their own marking knives, for example from
spade bits or
planer The term planer may refer to several types of carpentry tools, woodworking machines or metalworking machine tools.
*Plane (tool), a hand tool used to produce flat surfaces by shaving the surface of the wood
*Thickness planer (North America) or thi ...
blades.
Use
Marking knives are usually held like a pencil, and are guided using a
straightedge
A straightedge or straight edge is a tool used for drawing straight lines, or checking their straightness. If it has equally spaced markings along its length, it is usually called a ruler.
Straightedges are used in the automotive service and ma ...
or
square
In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...
.
Sometimes woodworkers will gently run a sharp pencil along the line afterwards to make it more visible.
Marking knives are sharpened in a similar manner to chisels or other bladed tools – using sharpening stones, files or sandpaper.
Shirabiki
A ''shirabiki'' is a Japanese marking knife made from a single piece of steel with a skewed single-bevel blade.
A double-bladed shirabiki is used for marking parallel lines. They are made with two parallel blades and a
thumbscrew for adjusting the distance between the blades.
Gallery
File:Markingknife.jpg, Marking knife with a skewed blade, made from a spade bit.
File:Cc&j-fig2--combined marking awl and striking knife.png, Combination marking knife and scratch awl
A scratch awl is a woodworking layout and point-making tool. It is used to scribe a line to be followed by a hand saw or chisel when making woodworking joints and other operations.
The scratch awl is basically a steel spike with its tip sharpen ...
File:Shirabiki.jpg, Japanese ''shirabiki'' marking knife.
See also
*
Scratch awl
A scratch awl is a woodworking layout and point-making tool. It is used to scribe a line to be followed by a hand saw or chisel when making woodworking joints and other operations.
The scratch awl is basically a steel spike with its tip sharpen ...
References
{{Knives
Woodworking measuring instruments
Knives
Woodworking hand tools