Marking knife - Wikipedia

Marking knife
Marking knife with a spear point blade
Other names	Striking knife Shirabiki
Classification	Woodworking hand tool Knife
Used with	Straightedges, squares, scratch awls, pencils

A marking knife or striking knife is a woodworking layout tool used for accurately marking workpieces.^[1] It is used to cut a visible line, which can then be used to guide a hand saw, chisel or plane when making woodworking joints and other operations.^[2] They are generally used when marking across the grain of the wood, with scratch awls better suited for marking with the grain.^[3]

Description[edit]

The blades on marking knives are made of tool steel, 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.^[4] 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.^[5]

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.^[3]^[1]

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 blades.^[6]^[7]^: 179

Use[edit]

Marking knives are usually held like a pencil, and are guided using a straightedge or square.^[7]^: 175 Sometimes woodworkers will gently run a sharp pencil along the line afterwards to make it more visible.^[1]

Marking knives are sharpened in a similar manner to chisels or other bladed tools – using sharpening stones, files or sandpaper.

Shirabiki[edit]

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.^[8]

Gallery[edit]

Marking knife with a skewed blade, made from a spade bit.
Combination marking knife and scratch awl
Japanese shirabiki marking knife.

References[edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c Blackburn, Graham (1998). Traditional woodworking handtools : a manual for the woodworker (1st ed.). New York: Lyon Press. pp. 31–32. ISBN 1-55821-874-2. OCLC 41029219.
^ Rae, Andy (1 March 2008). Choosing & Using Hand Tools. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 63–64. ISBN 978-1-60059-274-4.
^ ^a ^b Salaman, R. A. (1975). Dictionary of tools used in the woodworking and allied trades, c. 1700-1970. Internet Archive. New York, USA: Scribner. p. 269. ISBN 978-0-684-14535-8.
^ Liberman, Yoav (2015-05-28). "An Intro to Marking Knives: Part One". Popular Woodworking Magazine. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
^ "Spear-point Marking Knives". Popular Woodworking Magazine. 2013-01-24. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
^ Liberman, Yoav (2013-09-30). "Making a marking knife from an old planer blade - part 1". Popular Woodworking Magazine. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
^ ^a ^b Thiel, David, ed. (2007). Hand tool essentials: refine your power tool projects with hand tool techniques (1st ed.). Cincinnati, Ohio, USA: Popular Woodworking Books. pp. 174–179. ISBN 978-1-55870-815-0. OCLC 76871452.
^ Ōdate, Toshio (1998). Japanese woodworking tools : their tradition, spirit, and use (1st Linden Publishing ed.). Fresno, California: Linden Publishing. pp. 29–30. ISBN 0-941936-46-5. OCLC 38286556.

Woodworking

Overviews

Occupations

Woods

Soft	Cedar (Calocedrus, Cedrus) Cypress Douglas fir Fir Juniper Larch Kauri Pine Rimu Spruce Yew
Hard	Afromosia Alder Andiroba Anigre Ash Apple Aspen Avodire Balsa Beech Bilinga Birch African Blackwood Australian Blackwood Boxwood Bubinga Camphor Cedrela Cherry Chestnut Cocobolo Cumaru Ebony Elm Eucalyptus Hazel Hickory Hornbeam Idigbo Imbuia Ipê Iroko Jarrah Jelutong Lignum vitae Linden (lime, basswood) Lovoa Merbau Mahogany (American, African) Maple Meranti Oak Padauk Pear Plum Poplar Purpleheart Ovankol Ramin Red Quebracho Rosewood Rubberwood Sapele Teak Totara Utile Walnut Wenge Willow Zebrano
Engineered	Cross-laminated Glue laminated Hardboard MDF OSB Particle board Plywood Wood-plastic composite

Tools

Abrasives Axe Adze Burnisher Chisel Drawknife Drill Fence Float Gimlet Gauge Impact driver Janka hardness test Jointer Mallet Milling machine Mitre box Rasp Router Shaper Sandpaper Square (Carpenters, Combination, Miter, Speed, Try) Thickness planer Timber-framing Veneer hammer Vise Warrington hammer Winding sticks Wood scribe Workbench
Clamps	Band clamp C-clamp F-clamp Flooring clamp Gripe Holdfast Mitre clamp Pipe clamp Sawbuck
Saws	Backsaw Bandsaw Bow Bucksaw Chainsaw Circular Compass Coping Crosscut Frame Fretsaw Hand saw Jigsaw Keyhole Miter Ripsaw Scroll Table Veneer Whipsaw
Planes	Bedrock plane Block plane Chamfer plane Compass plane Finger plane Fore plane Grooving plane Jack plane Japanese plane Jointer plane Moulding plane Razee plane Rebate plane Router plane Scrub plane Shoulder plane Smoothing plane Spokeshave Surform

Geometry

Joints	Birdsmouth Biscuit Box Bridle Butt Butterfly Coping Crown of thorns Dado Dovetail Finger Groove Halved Hammer-headed tenon Knee Lap Mason's mitre Miter Mortise and tenon Rabbet/Rebate Scarf Splice Tongue and groove
Profiles	Bead Bevel Chamfer Ogee Ogive Ovolo
Surface piecing	Binding Edge banding Intarsia Marquetry Oystering Parquetry Purfling

Treatments

Organizations

Conversion

Techniques

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Manufacturers	Aitor Knife Company Al Mar Knives American Tomahawk Company Aritsugu Benchmade Böker Buck Knives Camillus Cutlery Company Cattaraugus Cutlery Company Chris Reeve Knives Chroma Cnife Clauss Cutlery Company Cold Steel Columbia River Knife & Tool Cuisinart Cutco Dalian Hanwei Metal Dexter-Russell Ek Commando Knife Co. EKA Emerson Knives F. Dick Fällkniven FAMAE Fiskars Gerber Legendary Blades Füritechnics Glock Ges.m.b.H. Imperial Schrade Ka-Bar Kershaw Knives KitchenAid Korin Japanese Trading Company Kyocera Leatherman Mad Dog Knives Marble Arms Medford Knife and Tool Microtech Knives Morseth Muela Murphy Knives Olfa Ontario Knife Company Opinel Randall Made Knives Rösle Sabatier Shun Cutlery Slice, Inc. SOG Specialty Knives Spyderco STI Knives Strider Knives Thiers Issard TOPS Knives Tramontina Victorinox W. R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co. Carl Walther GmbH Wenger Western Knife Company Wilkinson Sword Wüsthof Yoshida Metal Industry Global Zero Tolerance Knives Zwilling J. A. Henckels
Knifemakers	Rex Applegate James Black Blackie Collins John Nelson Cooper Ernest Emerson Jerry Fisk Bill Harsey Jr. Phill Hartsfield Gil Hibben Jimmy Lile Bob Loveless William F. Moran Ken Onion Ralph Osterhout Bo Randall Chris Reeve A. G. Russell Jody Samson William Scagel Mike Snody Robert Terzuola Michael Walker Buster Warenski Daniel Winkler
Associations	American Bladesmith Society Cutlery and Allied Trades Research Association Knifemakers' Guild
Category:Knives / Daggers

Description[edit]

Use[edit]

Shirabiki[edit]

Gallery[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]