Green Oak - Marking knife / wheel

[Geoff123]

Hi, hope someone can help. I'm going to be working with Green Oak and have used, on a training course, a marking knife that wasn't a knife but was a wheel ! The wheel was like those on the veritas wheel marking gauges, it looked a bit like a glasscutter but the wheel was positioned right at the end. Would be grateful for the name of this gizmo or where it can be bought. thanks

 

[AJB Temple]

I have never seen one. Possibly custom made. However, I have tried all kind of things on marking green oak and my experience is that white chinagraph pencils and black wax peel away pencils are very handy. Planed or sanded green oak is easy to mark (pencil is fine), and weathered oak is not (white chinagraph works though).

A marker knife for me does not usually leave a clear enough line for me to follow with a big circular saw. Using a knife with the grain is extremely prone to wandering (grain following) with green timber and, coupled with being somewhat hard to see, can be a waste of time. I have seen timber framers use a ground down pizza wheel cutter but it did not appear to give any advantage. I ground my own heavy duty marker knife (this is not delicate work) but rarely use it.

I use ordinary chalk a lot to mark timbers for matching purposes (faces, ends etc) as it comes off easily.

 

[ED65]

If this is the type of thing you used Geoff they're called wheel or rotary cutters and there are many variations. They're mostly made for paper craft and cloth cutting I think although I know some leatherworkers like them too, so they're available many places that sells artists'/craft supplies or stationery.