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Figure 1. A freshly made set of marking and cutting gauges, ready for use.
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Have you ever had a favorite old tool that you have used absolutely forever, and weren't willing to give it up even though it's worn far past the point of usefulness? I have two such tools - both, unfortunately, happen to be marking gauges. One is an old Stanley #97 wheel marking gauge, the other a Stanley #77 mortise gauge.
This errant devotion to these old tools finally led to frustration when I realized that on the #77, the pins had worn down to the point that there wasn't enough pin left to mark anything with. Over the years I had filed them down to tiny little nubs - there simply wasn't enough of them left to do the job anymore.
Something else - I didn't have a decent cutting gauge, something that I am going to need for my radio cabinet project. Very similar to a marking gauge in construction, they use a knife blade rather than a pin to cut rather than mark the surface, and are often used when cutting veneer parallel to an edge when installing inlay.
I could buy all the gauges I wanted, but getting all I wanted would cost a bit of cash, and the way things are I figured it might be cheaper (and funner!) to make them myself. Besides, I had all this brass stock laying around and also had this one, perfectly quartersawn piece of coco-bolo I have been hording since I found it years ago that was just begging to be used for some small tools just like these.
