I was able to use the knives in a recent project in my shop. I considered assembling the ferrule and blade holder dry while drilling marking knife ferrule review fedrule the hole, taking it apart, cleaning out the slot, then re-assembling it. Marking knife ferrule review Joiner's Knife has a 2 inch long blade and an overall length of 6 inches. Basically make the spear-shaped angle more shallow. As kniife as you can. Fussiness aside, this is a beautifully made tool and the handle was one of the most comfortable I have ever used.

Unfortunately, every single time I was ready to buy one, he had sold out. When they were back in stock, I had already splashed my monthly earnings on other tools that I needed. Which explained how he makes his dovetail marking knife.

During to , I was studying Level 3 Furniture Making and managed to complete my project a couple of weeks earlier than scheduled. So instead of going home and calling it there for the summer, I continued to come in until I was literally kicked out the workshop by tutors who were trying to set up the Rycotewood End of Year Show.

One evening, I was scrolling through eBay looking for cool pieces of wood I could buy. I was a cool 18 year old eh? I came across a Snakewood Turning Blank. Scarily, this was the first time I had used a lathe, and as usual I jumped straight in at the deep end.

The first thing I did was get the 4 prong drive, and whack it into the endgrain of the Snakewood blank to bed it in. Let it be a lesson to anyone reading this that Snakewood does not take well to a blunt prong drive being smashed into the endgrain.

Looks like this knife is going to be smaller than expected! I eventually managed to get it safely mounted in a 4 jaw chuck after some guidance from a fellow student who was far better at turning than I was. After a few catches and ropy moments, I managed to get it turned and even managed to get a bead on the end of it!

It looked crap but hey, it was there. I took the handle out the chuck, cut the slot for the blade, and slipped the ferrule into position. The article I was following stated that David tends to epoxy his blades in place. This seemed counter intuitive at first, although he made it clear that due to the chisel-like shape of these blades, it was entirely possibly to re-dress the point by simply honing it on a diamond stone.

I looked my existing marking knife. Chips, dents and glue took up more of the blade than a sharp point. I decided that I couldn't trust myself to solely use the knife for wood and had to make the blade removable. I purchased an M5 Tap and grub screw and drilled straight into the side of the ferrule and tapped straight into the Snakewood. Due to the dense grain of the wood, the thread still stands today! I used this knife for several years and loved it.

The blade was incredibly sharp, the handle was intuitive to hold, and despite looking ugly, I was proud of it. On the 30th of December, , I stopped working at Axminster due to trying to juggle too many balls at once.

I had limited time to work on things that I wanted to pursue such as YouTube and a social life and sadly, Axminster got the cut. I anticipated this for months in advance and gave management plenty of notice, and in the meantime saved up a ton of money. In the 4 months prior to leaving, I was working at Axminster , teaching both day and evening classes at Rycotewood , and was also running my own business with the YouTube channel.

I grinded and saved a lot! I intended to make full use of my employee discount before walking out the door for the last time. I had been woodworking for around 6 years by this point and decided that I wanted to expand my skills into other areas. Secondly, as my channel was growing, the tools I was using began gaining more attention. Everyone noticed the usual suspects such as Lie-Nielsen and Veritas , but no one could identify the knife.

I also noticed that David Barron had ceased selling his knife. I had 4 things to confirm there was a gap in the market. Firstly, I had seen how many knives David was selling after reading his blog a few years ago. Secondly, I had a larger following than he did at the time of selling his knives. Thirdly, there was potential to make the blade replaceable which also had the added benefit of allowing the user to choose from a selection of 6 different blade shapes.

Finally, I realised that it would be easy for me to make the handle and the ferrule fully customisable if I were to make these knives in-house. I began working on a design for the knife, particularly the locking mechanism on the ferrule. I considered a collet, however there was no chance I could make one efficiently.

I considered a pin that slots through the side of the ferrule and through the hole on the blade, secured in place with a magnet. But this would easily get lost in a pile of shavings if dropped. Everything pointed back to my original design of using a grub screw to secure the blade in place. Of course a grub screw could easily get lost in a pile of shavings. But at least it was far easier to order spares online as opposed to a bespoke magnetic pin!

So I got to work re-designing my original knife and faced a number of different challenges. The original knife required the blade to be cut shorter before being inserted into the ferrule. But I did not want people to need to cut down blades in order to replace them. Not only from a convenience standpoint, but also from a safety perspective. This mean't that the ferrule had to be longer on the new design to accept the entire blade. The nice thing about this is that it's added a nice amount of mass to the front of the knife so that it required less effort to cut, and feels like a higher quality item.

I wanted the grub screw to be in the centre of the ferrule along it's length. But more significantly, rotating the knife limits how tight a space you get the tool into.

With a thin spear-point knife, you can sneak into almost any space. There are a lot of spear-point marking knives out there, and they are surprisingly different in the details. Three of these knives are made by individual makers: the knives from Blue Spruce, Chester and Knight toolworks.

The knives from Hock Tools come from a small company in Northern California. For me, marking knives are an item of some intimacy, and so I gravitate toward tools made by people you can call on the phone and talk to personally. After six months of shop time, I can say that I like all of these knives, though each has quirks and limitations. This review should help you sort out the best one for you.

Instead, here are the characteristics I have found to be more important:. It must be balanced, lightweight and keep your fingertips away from the sharp edges. You should be able to control the knife without a death grip.

This is an important difference. Larger blade angles are better for marking dados and tenons using a square because you want to deeply score both the near and far corners of your work to make it easy to carry the line around the workpiece. A larger blade angle cuts these corner marks without you having to radically angle your wrist. I prefer the smaller-angle knives for dovetails, especially for transferring marks from the tail boards to the pin boards.

The lower blade angle allows you to exert pressure in the right place. Thin knives allow you to sneak into tight spaces between the tails to mark out the pins. This benefit comes at a high price, however. Thin knives are more difficult to sharpen because the cutting bevels are considerably smaller. The thin blade is reinforced by two brass ferrules, which make it rigid. The middling blade angle makes it suited for both dovetail or bench work.

Even before you pick up the tools you have a sense of quality and pride of ownership as you open the packaging. From the box with the Blue Spruce Toolworks logo and name tied with twine, to the wood shavings surrounding the knives, it is all very well thought out, designed and implemented.

The package contained both the Sloyd Knife and a smaller version called the Joiner's Knife. What is Sloyd? It refers primarily to woodwork but also paper-folding and sewing, embroidery, knitting and crochet. Educational sloyd's purpose was formative in that it was thought that the benefits of handicrafts in general education built the character of the child, encouraging moral behavior, greater intelligence, and industriousness.

Sloyd had a noted impact on the early development of manual training, manual arts, industrial education and technical education. Sloyd Knife. Both knives are based on the original Sloyd Knife design and feature finely machined, ground and honed high carbon steel blades.

The handles are turned from curly hard maple that has been infused with a polymer resin for enhanced durability and balance. They have flattened sides for a firm, comfortable grip and to prevent rolling on the bench.

The Joiner's Knife has a 2 inch long blade and an overall length of 6 inches. The photograph also shows the leather sheath which you can wear on your belt around the shop so that you can always have the knives at hand. The sheath fits either knife. The knives come fully sharpened and are ready to use right out of the box. I've tried to show the cutting edge in the following picture so you can get an idea of the sharpness of the knives.

Knives like these have many uses around the shop.

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