DW WOODWORKING

The pencil marking gauge is a simple, yet very useful layout tool. This was one of those things , that I would get around to making and , its took nearly a year to get around to. It's very common for me, in my work, to be marking out boards, anywhere from 300mm to  500mm. I cut and square one edge, then work from that edge. I have used a combination square, to mark out parallel lines etc. for some time . As good as they are, they have two main flaws. 1) when marking parallel lines , my pencil tends to wonder off the edge, of the ruler section. 2) The biggest combination square I own , is 400mm. That is the ruler section, so I don't get the full  400mm, because there is always a portion, of the ruler in the main body. This becomes a problem or more of an inconvenience , when marking out boards wider the 350mm, which is common for me, to do . So then I have to make two or more, measurements with a tape measure, and join the marks up with a straight edge. S...

Earlier this year, I read a few articles from the lost press art, about the roman workbench, then again with mortise and tenon magazine, which peaked my interest. I must admit I was impressed, but also sceptical. I mean most of us use a tall bench, with a vise, and only see a chair maker use a similar bench. For this reason, and because we don't know any different, we think we won't be able to carry out, some tasks. I wanted to build one, so that I could use it outside, especially with summer almost here. It appealed to me, with the fact, that I could just pick it up, and carry it outside. Also, the fact that I needed an extra saw horse, pretty much sold it to me. Any one who uses saw horses for sawing with hand saws, on a regular basis will know that, a bench of this size, will make life very easy for this task, because of large amount of surface area. So I built this with the idea that, in the worse case scenario, I had a very good saw bench. So it wasn't a bi...