Chisel Marking Knife for skinny dovetails
Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)
>Well, this is what happens when I get bored - I start inventing wierd tools.
This is (what I call) a "chisel marking knife". It is really a chisel-shaped marking knife for skinny dovetails. I decided that I needed a marking knife for very skinny dovetails - to be able to slide a blade between the kerf-wide gap at the top - as I could not use any of the the others that I have because they were just too thick. I have used a Stanley Knife blade to do this to date. I wanted something that could be punched downward on the inside face of the tail or, alternately, could be used as a standard double-sided marking knife. It would just have to be very thin, as thin as a Stanley Knife blade.
This one is made out of a steel plaster trowel (really tough steel - I wonder what it is?). Its final dimensions are 3/4" wide x 1" long and 1mm thick. It is bevelled at the front and sides (45 degree bevels). The picture here really needed a standard chisel alongside to better illustrate just how thin the blade is.
The plan is to do the saw cuts for the tails - but not cut out the waste - then place the tail piece over the pin piece and mark off the pin placement through the kerfs. Only then is the tail waste cut. This is demoed in the following post.
Regards from Perth
Derek
