I think it depends on your material and tools. I've used pens, fine markers, pencils, and knives. I liked knifing for a chainsaw cut on finished pine, but it seems pointless on rough sawn spruce or fir. I find working conditions and tool use play a big part in how thick or visible I make my line. Also of importance is wether I'm cutting the joint immediately or someone else is cutting it later.

I prefer Dixon 2.5's, mechanical leads break under my use, and harder pencils leave too feint a line for my liking. I have a flat-sided (More reliably rides the chosen straitedge) reconfigured carving tool which takes and holds a fine point for Awl-line layout when circumstance or the client's wishes demand.

Thane - I'm not sure it is possible to suggest pencil lines are or ever will be a way to date frames now or in the future. I've occasionally found total pencil layout on earlier frames. Pencil manufacture Stateside began in 1812 in response to the then ongoing blockade, and the stop in flow of British made pencils - This obviously to fill an existing demand. And the oldest existing example of any type is said to be a 17th Century Carpenters Pencil.

Sorry about the aside - Pencils as used by Carpenter's are an area of revolving focus again at the moment > I'm finding very fine line Red Grease Pencil layout on the current project frame which dates to the first few years of Square Rule. Interestingly they used the red lines to highlight the difference between those and adjacent lines - Lines struck at theoretical depth of Housing as opposed to the Awl struck Shoulder / Cut line to go into that Housing, And lines struck and carried around to delineate the Relish for a mortise for a Boxed Tenons as opposed to those which described the end cut and the Housing which are awl struck - If anyone here has researched Grease Pencils, their use in layout or for Carpenters Marks, give me a Shout.

Very informative Will. Thx for the history lesson.
Once again I find my foot in my mouth.

Thane

Also, lead pencils are documented at least to the middle ages.They were then used to make drafts when doing illumination in manuscripts, because the lead left a light line that could be removed if an error was made (kind of like later graphite pencils)

Hello,

The substance of the markings is interesting enough, be it lead of times gone by, graphite mixed with wax and clay, rabbit skin ink or a scratch into the wood's surface. Also not to be forgotten is the mechanics of your tool. For example my bamboo stick is shaped to suit my preference even though I stick to the standard form in general, being left handed, I make it accordingly, with a knife edge, single beveled, relieved at the back corner. The flattened backside means I align the square exactly at the measured indications, no accommodating an offset to account for pencil thickness or bevel angle, which as I pointed out change from one side of the line to the other when using pencil.

And what's more the mechanics of an engineers pencil is poorly suited for the work because the lead is gripped in the jaw at only one concentrated point where it is bound to snap off as has happened to Will T.

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff