DIY Marking Gauge

what's up guys welcome back the marking gauge is an essential tool for woodworking and i'm going to show how to make these four marking gauges from this one piece of scrap wood what scrap wood project ideas do you have let me know in the comments flatten one edge i always check that the edge is straight and square i'm going to disassemble my favorite marking gauge and use that one as a template i set it flush to the straight edge and mark the width which is two and one quarter inches wide i'm going to set my marking gauge to that point and scribe it along the board if you don't already have a marking gauge i've shown techniques in other videos that i use to mark to width such as using a straight edge i mark it around clamp it and start sewing it off periodically i flip the board around and saw from the other side to stay close to the gauge line on both sides of the board the cut off section here will later be ripped down again to make the stem or beam of the gauge for now i'm going to clean off the saw marks on this section which will form the stock also known as the fence or the head of the gauge again i'm transferring the height and a slight curvature for my current gauge the overall height here is two and a half inches the mortise begins 7 8 of an inch from the top of the stock so i mark that on each of my pieces i then mark 3 4 of an inch down from the first mark with the knife brick these two points will give me the upper and lower boundaries of the mortise i want to get the lateral boundaries of the mortise before knifing the upper and lower boundaries so for now i just use a pencil line there are multiple ways to go about doing this first we can guesstimate the center with a gauge and put a pin prick from both sides then setting the gauge to the midpoint between these two dots will give the center of the board testing from both sides should result in only one pin brick one option is to mark the center and make a cross hash at the midpoint which in this case with a 3 4 inch mortise means coming down 3 8 of an inch [Music] this method would give the center of the mortise which could then be drilled through and squared off with a chisel a second option is to mark 3 8 of an inch from each side of the center point and a third obvious option for somebody who owns a mortise gauge is to set the pins to the three-quarter inch chisel center it on the board and mark the lateral boundaries on the back side of the board i lightly mark the lateral boundaries all the way down and i'll clean that off later with the plane now with the lateral boundaries defined i will knife the upper and lower mortise boundaries making sure to put a knife nick at the edge of the board which is used to transfer these lines to the back of the board [Music] [Music] take a straight edge corner to corner to find the center point of the mortise these are three quarter inch square mortises but i'm going to use a number 13 drill bit which means 13 16. this will result in a slightly oversized hole marking gauges are not something where you want a tight fit the whole diameter extending past the squared lines is something i've seen on commercially available gauges which i believe helps to lock the beam in place while in use i try to line up the snail of the drill bit with the center of the mortise and i begin to drill through i check the back side of this board as i'm drilling and once the snail peeks through i flip the board around and drill from the other side the center section pops out unfortunately that hole is not centered and i only had to embarrass myself twice before coming to my senses and marking the exact center with a square all before drilling i guess it's a good thing i made four of these and really i'm gonna go ahead and finish the first two anyways because other than not looking as nice they should work just fine now i'm going to take a 3 4 inch chisel and chop halfway down right on the line from the front before flipping around and chopping the other half from the back side i also pair down the sides next after ripping to rough size i plane down the beam to fit inside the mortise going back and forth until i've got a nice loose fit here you can see the beam fits but there's still way too much friction which would make setting the pen to an exact spot difficult so more planning and finally i've got a friction free fit and i was trying to match the wiggle or slop to my other gauge i plane off the edges by clamping a little stop in my vise [Music] now i'm going to cut this in half to make the beam each beam is going to be six and a quarter inches long with my bench hook out i square some lines and cut off the stocks as with when i cut 10 shoulder lines i feel like cutting a notch at the front in the back and then connecting those two notches helps keep this square now to shape the stock we use a spokeshave first i'm going to knock off the corners and then round it off side to side and also slightly from front to back i do the same for the top and bottom of each stock now to make the pins i'm going to use these thingies which are carbon steel i'll put a link in the description for the what i use for the pins the thumb screws and all the other hardware i use i just saw it off with a hacksaw [Music] each of the four pins i tried shaping in a different way i chucked it in the drill tried this this and this torch up and i heat the pen until it's cherry red and then i plunge it in some vegetable oil tempering which pulls out some hardness by baking in an oven afterwards is really not necessary for this i drill a hole at the end of the beam with an undersized drill bit this one is 5 60 fourths i then chuck and insert the hardened pins does it work like a charm i use a brass thumb screw and a threaded insert links are in the description i take a 3 8 inch drill bit and drill a through hole for the threaded insert to sink the insert further down i follow that up with a half inch drill bit and i just go down a little bit the threaded insert is inserted using an allen wrench i'll remove and reinstall this insert later with epoxy on the threads i checked the thumb screw fit and it's looking really good but we're not done yet there's a really important step thumb screw gauges have to have some sort of pad to bear down on the beam so the metal screw doesn't totally jack up the wooden beam i'm going to rough out a 3 8 inch square rectangle it through a dowel plate on my bench hook i'll cut off a small section of that to use as a pad and fit that into my 3 8 inch hole now when the thumb screw is advanced that pad will bear down on the beam to lock it in place assemble the gauge check that it slides freely check that it locks securely and move on to the next one i finished this with some tried and true varnish oil just give it a good wipe down and that's it take care y'all

Channel: Frank's Workbench

Views: 34,401

Keywords: woodworking, hand tools, hand tool woodworking, franks workbench, traditional woodworking, handtools, woodworking hand tools, woodworking handtools, handtool woodworking, hand tool woodoworking projects, how to make a marking gauge, how to build a marking gauge, diy marking gauge, scrap wood projects, scrap wood project ideas, essential woodworking hand tool, homemeade marking gauge, shop made tools, marking and measuring, diy measuring tools, woodworking tools

Id: H8JViq2QPnc

Length: 10min 38sec (638 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 06 2021