Marking Knife

I got a little shop time today, and made a new tool.  I recently cleared a bunch of space, and got a whole new corner for the shop which I share with the family storage area.  While I was cleaning the shop I found a broken jigsaw blade.  I read somewhere on the internet that you could make a marking knife out of these.  So I gave it a shot.

I used the grinder to shape it a bit, and pointed it on both ends.

Then I turned a piece of Mesquite pen blank I’d gotten in a trade box with some other pen turners.

I cut a piece of brass pen tube I found while cleaning up (a theme perhaps) to make the ferrule.

Then I drilled a hole slight smaller than the width of the tang in the end.

Clamping the blade in the vise, and then hammer with a wooden hammer on the end of the handle I seated the blade into the handle with a few good wacks.  It’s pretty solid, and I figure it will work for a bit, and it’s going to get a lot of action as a marking knife so I figure this will be good enough.

Then a quick sharpening on the grinder, and a pass over the sandpaper to flatten the back and done!

A nice quick project, that I can now use to mark accurate dovetails.

– Badger