 marking devices you might want to use for your woodworking. Hola woodworkers, Paul Carlson here, small workshop guy. Welcome back to my workshop. I did an earlier video about marking devices what you use to mark lines and kinda did a test on which one's sand away quickest and which ones you might not want to use on certain applications. This is an update because I have found a new secret weapon. I'll disclose that to you at the end. So, marking up 101. When you've got a rough 2x4, 2x6, you haven't run it through a planer of any kind. It's got a rough edges on it. You're just doing rough cuts. Then just mark it with a contractor's pencil or go to your kid's bedroom and steal number two, a school pencil. Those will work. Another one you might want to use if you don't mind the dark line and it's not too hard to get rid of. Certainly for just rough applications, it could be a sharpie. Don't use a sharpie too many things because that's a very broad line and so it should only be for rough cuts. You might want to use a sharpie if you're gonna do something on a band saw and you want a nice very visible line to try to keep your band saw blade on the inside or outside of that line. So that's certainly good. The problem is the point to a sharpie gets really broad after just a few uses. So, if I need a black line, what I have started using is this pilot razor point and it's pretty really really small. Let me put it beside this and mark it. And so you can see the comparison there between that black one and the other sharpies. So I keep both of those around in the sharp, depending on the application. I really like that one. When you are gonna do anything on rough, rough, rough wood, you probably don't want to be using a five millimeter mechanical pencil design for your Incra marking devices. Because the minute you start to mark on that rough wood with your five millimeters, I can guarantee you it's gonna break 95% of the time. I get so frustrated with it. I'll get that Incra all set up. I'll find the right little spot here. I'll start to drag it across my work piece only to feel or see that little five millimeter lead break. So, I've got a new secret weapon. It won't work for the Incra. So I still keep this in my work best when I'm gonna use the Incra. I have to suffer through that. But for 95% of my other just normal marking, I have this weapon. This is called the Graph Gear 1000. It has a very nice area to hold on to with some little rubber things that make it feel nice in your hand. It just looks good. It uses nine millimeter lead, which doesn't break and it's still fine enough to certainly do your applications. And so that is my go-to. Look at that. I'm gonna go back and forth and not break. Let me try that with the five millimeter. Went a couple inches and then it broke. So I love this. I highly recommend it. Get one on Amazon for $9. Try it. Let me know if you ended up liking it and stayed with it. I like this so much. I went back to, because I know I'm gonna lose it. And I went back and bought a set of three to go along with the one that's in my work vest. Obviously, if you're marking on dark wood, you might wanna use something that's white. And so I have found this set of gel pins. They sand off pretty readily. They're seen to work well. I tried some soft graphite drawing pencils and they broke so easy. I was so frustrated. So these gel pins are from DAINYN. Dainian and again, they're not graphite lead. They're a gel and they do a really nice job. You can see how visible that is. So I've got a whole set of those. Again, my old buddy Amazon. Obviously, when you're need a really fine line, you don't wanna use any of these. You can get a finer line by having your scribing knives. And this one's from Narex. This one's from Eye Gaging. Try to keep those points sharp. Use the flat edge, not the one with the bevels on it. So the flat edge goes along your ruler. And the secret there when you're particularly working with something that's got a lot of grain is to pull across lightly the first few times. It'll be making some marks and breaking that grain. And then finally, you can press harder if it's something where you're gonna wanna put a chisel in the line and you want that chisel to find the line. So that's woodworking marking devices 101. I hope if you're a beginner, you found that helpful. Small workshop guy signing off.