Mo, I use common graduated tapes, that I mark up with colored sharpies, different colors code info, and act as a highlight to (not an over write of) the relevant graduated dimension. Different tapes for posts, plates and sills, and ties. So on a post you will have transverse and longitudinal members different colors. Anyhow a number of tapes will be used in a frame but cleaned up with solvent after the frame is complete. I call this a shoebox template method. A friend of mine 20 years ago used steel banding strap but it was rather untidy method of templating.

The marking gauges are simple plywood tee squares that are glued and screwed together. The blade of the tee has hardened screws set into the blade at appropriate dimensions. Screw tips can be filed sharp and dimensions can be tweaked with the file. The advantage is mortise and matching tenons are marked with the same gauge and are buildings quantity of gains are marked with the same gauge and the gauge records all dimensions. I am heavy down the square rule path. Anyhow I get by with three or four gauges and a screwdriver.

Sorry I don't have photos but this is dirt simple

Mo,

"Fast Cap," tools has been making "story tapes," for years. It looks just like a tape measure but it flat and has a writable surface. We have several but still prefer a piece of wood 90% of the time.

Regards,

jay

Roger, Roger.

Thanks Jay. I'll check into those.

Here was the picture I was trying to add, my last post won't let me edit.



just need to the proper hardware for the swivel. Anybody ever used one of these?

Carpenter pencil, cut to a knife blade of sorts, fine tuned on the concrete floor. It is just too simple. Don't have to search for bamboo or keep an ink pot at hand. I would have it all over the place and upside down and all over my face. I can only imaging it being like anti-seize while doing mechanic work. Even after a day of layout my hands are covered in graphite.

I often mark on my tape, with fine tipped markers of various colors and or pencil, given lengths, not paying attention to the fraction but making a story pole out of my tape. No 86--68 mistakes, which I am prone to. Short lengths I will use my dividers, again no chance of miss reading fraction or mixing numbers.

I am finding more and more I mark an X at the outside ends of my mortices and tenons. Center line the mortice for the boring machine bits with proper spacing and sometime 1/8th pilot hole an inch or so deep. A little extra time but makes the setting of the machine a cinch, no over bores.

I scribble numbers on the yellow case of my tape all the time, stays long enough to get to the saw and will rub off. It should have a special pad for such a purpose.

Mo,

We use line rule so I see the purpose of you jig, but it's just more work that we don't use. The line is there and it represents a convergence inside the timber that everything else is designed and laid out to.

Hi Timbeal,

Never had to search for these anymore than my other marking tools.

I am always searching for something, just like to keep it to a minimum.

I find pencil stubs all over the place, just too short to use, about 2" is the limit. Can't bring myself to dispose of them in the trash.

Lofting off a floor layout is a nice way to get rid of the tape measure.

If I still had a pony tail I would do this. Half the time it is behind my other ear.

I use a red and black 997 with the "Hard" lead.

Hello,

A bigger problem than spillage has ever been is that the dog used to like lapping up the ink if I left it down low. There is nothing inherently untidy about it all though, it depends on the individual.

What the one would find annoying the other would take pleasure in. That it is a skill in and of itself to get right and that after a while becomes second nature is something I like about the method. A possible disadvantage, you don't stop it in your pocket like a pencil. On the other hand you will most likely not displace it like the ever elusive pencil either.


These are the main components of my lay-out set-up.

I use the ink well - the base of a broken bowel from around three hundred years ago I dug out of the garden - in combination with the sumitsubo as blotter.

Tim mentions the dividers which I am finding more and more uses for and more and more useful.

Lay-out from off centered snap line: Here, I must admit the bamboo pen can be problematic butting it up along reference marks off the story stick. The solution is carving a pointed pencil shape on the end opposing the bladed end, (see the bamboo pen to the right of the red ink well and pen).

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff

Hello Don,

That layout kit looks very familiar...I like it. Since we do Asian folk style most of the time and other Middle Eastern and related methods, we use "Line Rule," all the time. Being where you are, how often do you use "line rule," and have you ever seen evidence of it in old buildings in Europe?

When I apprentice to the Amish Barn Wrights, they used what they called a "grease line," often, (never got their formula for the ink-but that is what it was like, a greasy ink.) Since they used "line rule," I was just wondering how you came about using it, and how often you use it now? You are using the method just as they (Dutch Amish,) did, which is hardly any different than do Asian timber wrights. When did you start using it?

Sincere Regards,

jay