Well, if people are going to do marking gauge threads…
This is so as not to derail Dr Al’s or Mike G’s threads. And to be honest I can’t remember whether I have posted this before. But I use this:
It’s made from an old sycamore fire wood log, some fruit wood for the blade wedge, and the blade itself is made from the tip of an old (and previously much valued, I might add) rosewood handled decorator’s scraper, snapped off by my partner. Grumph.
There are, as astute readers will undoubtedly observe, a few key points.
1. It cost nothing.
2. It works.
3. It has a unique design feature at the far end of the shaft that almost looks as though the maker had cut the sloped recess the wrong way round. So the blade could never go closer than the wedge depth to the running surface. And then just reversed the shaft, had another go, and bunged in a tapered piece of pine that fitted so well that it seemed a crime to remove it and replace it with something less obvious.
And, as an aside, its method of operation is readily comprehensible to the meanest intelligence (i.e. me).