Marking and Cutting Pro Tips

[Music] up all of the thing to the carpenter does perhaps nothing is more basic than marking a board so these four markers are sort of interchangeable but not really they have specific application lumber crayon will make a big bold mark that can be seen from a distance and the color itself can communicate is a symbol for use Sharpie is indelible once it's on it's always on and it will mark on any substrate since it will mark on anything if you need to mark for instance a metal stud or a piece of valley metal piece of flashing your Sharpie is going to market your pencil is going to skate or if you get a little mark with the pencil by the time you take your eyes off it you put it back in your bags and try to find it again on that piece it's going to be hard to find sharpies are awesome but we get to the real meat and potatoes of marking for a carpenter pencils so there are some advantages for these little guys it's more conducive to the fine motor skills for little marks the lead is round smaller in diameter easier and quicker to bring to really a fine point which you've just got to have you're building cabinets you're doing fine millwork you're running casing base you need a fine point and this will hold a finer point longer because of the reduced diameter of the lid fit behind your ear without giving you a blister that's great the downside is if you're doing anything but finish work you are always going to be breaking your pencil what good is that okay there's a reason that these are a carpenter's pencil they're harder to break they're durable the lead itself is harder to break because it's it's bigger in cross-section if you need a mark this is going to be ready to mark most the time another excellent comment that came on the channel the other day which I've done occasionally but not often is you can sharpen both end to this guy that way kind of like a double bit attacks you can keep a dull point for rough work a sharper point for fine work or you just always got a pencil in your pocket even if you break one end you just spin it around you can mark these are a production versatile great tool there's a couple other things that a carpenter can do with a carpenter's pencil that perhaps you haven't thought of there they're a shim aren't they and they are almost all exactly the right shim that you need for setting a window we'll do a video one time sometime on setting windows but the couple pencils are always about the right distance for the bottom gap on an EXO or really any type of window that you may be installing here's the one little freakout your coworker gets a sliver in his eye and he lifts his eyelid up and you look in there and sure enough there's that speck of sawdust or whatever it is now what are you going to pull it out with now you can roll up a napkin or you can take the end of a match a paper match works pretty good but a carpenter's pencil that's used is smooth on all of the edges there's not a sharp line anyplace on the edge of that graphite it's easily manipulated and you can pull a piece of sawdust out of the corner of a guy's eye with the end of your pencil I've helped people like this and I've had people take their pencils out and help me I'm not recommending it make sure your malpractice insurance is all paid up be careful but sometimes you're going to be in a jam keep it in mind the end of that pencil pretty useful but wait till you've used it a little bit don't sharpen it first so when you sharpen one of these if you turn your hands around and push the knife away from you the way you were taught as a Boy Scout you can have a hard time controlling the sharpening process I use the controllability of having my thumb against the side of the pencil I go down partway this knife is not very sharp as you get close you begin to actually expose the lead I begin to chamfer the corners and then once the ledge exposed then I worry about scraping whatever kind of a point that I need depending on what I'm doing you can keep that up you can work that point down now I should have long since stopped if I were just framing marking the board is basic to building there's really one way that usually people think of as the way to mark a board it's a little bit perhaps counterintuitive but it takes two marks it happens like this let's say you want to make a mark at 40 inches you put the point of your pencil and mark it and then you put the point of your pencil back at the mark and Mark in another direction the apex of the two lines is the point of contact that does a couple of things but primarily it makes a mark that's big enough to stand up to the pressure of construction may be a dirty board now it's time to square it you can see the near leg disappearing as you get to the mark you can keep track of the intersection you see that if it was just one mark you would not be sure where the apex was until you were past it perhaps that's overthinking but that's just a good fast way to make a line the crows foot has come in come to be the standards kind of sign akwonton mark for construction for a couple of reasons one its visible from a distance two you can interpret the apex from either side and three if I mark and don't quite get it right the follow up mark can be used to shift the mark a little to the left or right you see I can I can kind of clean up a mark and move it depending on where I create the new apex now if you're just working by yourself and no one else has to interpret your mark and you're not going to move your feet or change positions it can be something as simple as just a single mark 44 inches BAM now I know where that mark is I'm not going to be confused but it's not going to mean anything to anyone else but it'll work I've seen guys whose habit is rather to make a little just a little mark like that now there's not a thing in the world wrong with that but a mark like that is not visible from a distance okay it's an up-close-and-personal mark probably more conducive to finish work than framing so there's three different ways to mark a bard not one of them is right not one of them is wrong but just make sure you catch your mark in the right spot so you've transferred the measurement to the board now you need to put the line that is going to be cut through the measurement for this conversation we'll pretend it's a square line using a speed square I bring the speed square over to where it visually intersects the apex of the mark and I mark it now depending on the accuracy you need you make a finer or a heavier line you are trying to Center your line on your mark the allowable tolerance of the piece you're cutting is going to insist on either a finer or a heavier line because you are going to be bisecting that line with one edge or the other of the saw depending on which side of the board is the side you're keeping so it's a question isn't it about whether you leave the line or take the line how much of the line you take how much of the line you leave that question is really only a question when you're communicating between two guys one guy's taking the measurement one guy's marking the board one or the other them is making the cut there sort of a standard additional call-out when somebody's getting ready to cut a line where you've taken the measurement and that is leave the line or take the line so that indicates that additional degree of accuracy that is described by the thickness of the pencil line but when you're doing the measuring and you're doing the marking you're going to know where on that center of that pencil line your actual net measurement is and that will dictate where the saw blade runs can you see that the entire kerf was subtracted from the length of the piece on the left can you see that half the curve was subtracted from the piece on the left and can you see that nope nothing at all was subtracted from the piece on the left now the guy who took the measurement and made the mark is going to understand which of those approaches is going to be right to get the length and the piece of lumber that you need so in the simple task of measuring and marking and cutting a board there are at least four specific ways to screw it up and besides that each of those sort of incremental parts of the process has their own opportunity for a variation or a margin of error that can accumulate so when you actually get the piece to put it in you have no idea how you got so far off first the measurement can be incorrect particularly on an inside measurement second you can put the mark in the wrong spot either by mentally dropping an inch adding an inch or just in attention and placing the mark it's easy to do guys third you can make the mark wrong your squares not in contact or you let the angle of the square root of the pencil relative to the work vary as you mark you just set the wrong degree on your protractor any of those things can have you so that the scribed mark is in the wrong spot and in the cut remembering and control remembering where the net distance is and controlling your saw so you've got at least these four opportunities to screw up the length of the fit of a board and really each one will have its own little contribution to either a nice fit or something that you need to throw away and start again the most technically accurate line that you can make maybe you're doing finish work maybe you're building a piece of furniture I have here a piece of vertical grain white oak it's been stained it's been sealed got here a piece of clear vertical grain fur I'm not just going to pull out my big pencil or and I'm not going to hack this with a skill saw you can put your scribe on there and take your utility knife that's a fine line that's the kind of tolerance you need when you're really working down to a tight tight specification a razor knife a box knife a nice sharp edge is going to give you a line that's accurate let me make up a number and say within two or three thousandths sometimes that's a tolerance you have to work to as a carpenter so with expensive material in an interior finished condition when a fine line is important you can use a mechanical pencil the leads not going to break on a surface like this a lot of guys that I've watched do this work I've used it a time or two myself use an exacto knife you can always get a sharp edge it's angled out there this utility knife has been beat up with roofing and everything else but for a tight tight tolerance line in a very exact spot that's going to relieve the grain a little so it has no tendency to splinter as the cut is made use a razor perfect line so here's my parting shot not every measurement not every mark not every cut it's critical to the success of the job but there are times in every job usually around layout time that accuracy is super important so when you come to those junctures learn to recognize them and when your measurement and your mark is going to cost somebody a lot of money when it's wrong stop the side conversations turn the radio down or off kind of get into the zone double-check your work and make sure that that measurement that mark that cut is exactly right or there's going to be a lot of people for a lot of time that are going to regret your inattention [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 820,455

Rating: 4.9465632 out of 5

Keywords: pencils, markings, scribe, carpentry, woodword, craftsman, craft, sharpie, crayon, cutting wood, Trisquare, Framing square

Id: _ugkCBG1PSY

Length: 12min 31sec (751 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 07 2017