 What should you use to mark your cut lines in woodworking? Hola woodworkers, Paul Carlson here, small workshop guy. I was working on a project recently, the samurai carpenter workbench, and in doing so I needed to mark out a rectangle one inch deep by three inches in the back and five inches, so five by three by one. I marked it out on the wrong side. I caught it just in time because I always stop, that's why I'm the world's slowest woodworker, I always stop before I do a cut and I do a quick review of what am I going to do and am I doing it in the right place. I almost cut the wrong side of my workbench. Wouldn't have been the end of the world because it would be underneath, but I would know it's there and that would bother me. So what I do when I mark lines is I generally use a mechanical pencil with a 0.5 millimeter lead so I can use my inkra, but if I'm going to do something involving a router and I have trouble looking underneath to see where I am and relative to my line, I have a habit of grabbing a sharpie. In having done that and put down the sharpie and then made the mistake and then needed to get rid of that sharpie, I started to wonder what should I mark with when I do a sharpie on a hardwood with a grain, depending on the nature of the grain, is it soaking down in there and so then how much sanding do I have to do or thickness planing to get rid of it. So I thought I'd do an experiment, that's what I'm going to do today. So I've got a piece of white maple with a number of different instruments. First I'm going to mark it with just the mechanical pencil. Probably be a good idea to get the lead out. I have age-related macular degeneration in one eye so seeing these lines is sometimes problematic for me depending on the lighting and that's why I was using the sharpie. Next I'm going to use just a number two pencil to basically stole it from my grandkids. I'm going to use a contractor's pencil from who did I get it from? Home Depot. I'm going to use the black sharpie and I'm going to use a blue sharpie and again my question is is that soaking down into the grain. Again what is it I'm after? I'm wondering whether or not using these sharpies is a mistake. Am I creating more work for myself than I need to as far as getting that back off of my workpiece before I put on my finish or whatever. So now to test this I'm going to run a sander for a while just on top of all of those with equal pressure and see in what order they erase. First of all let me tell you that I've got 100 grit on the sandpaper. All right can I tell anything? Kind of interesting. The 0.5 millimeter lead pencil, mechanical pencil and I'm not sure the hardness I think probably number two. That line is still fairly predominantly there. The number two lead pencil is still a little bit there. The Home Depot contractor is completely gone and I still have prominent lines for the black and the blue sharpie so obviously they are sinking further down into the board. So let's do a little bit more. Essentially all the lead pencils are gone. Actually there's a little light lines still for the 0.5 millimeter mechanical pencil but I still have a fairly prominent wouldn't want would not want them to be their lines for the two sharpies. My conclusion I'm going to when possible I might mark with the contractor's pencil although when I need a nice sharp line I'll use my mechanical pencil with a 0.5 for my ink and so forth but I will no longer use permanent marker black or blue sharpie. Small workshop guy signing off.