Sharpie equilivant for marking wood?

Self Made Knives

Self Made Knives

Well-Known Member
You know you use a sharpie to black out something on steel so you can see where you've ground and where you haven't? Any ideas on something you can shade wood with to show where you've sanded and where you haven't? Everything I can think of might stain the wood. I'm struggling with keeping scales on one symmetrical, this koa starts looking all the same after a while.
 
I use sharpies on wood. I X out or figure eight the inside of a set of scales before hand sanding for final flatness. Sharoies, Big No2 pencils have worked for what I need on woods.
 
This would be for the outside of the scales, so I think a sharpie would bleed though too deep. I'm nearing final dimension and I've got a little double bevel around outside that I want to keep perfectly even side to side. I'm having a heck of a time seeing it when sanding. Afraid pencil will leave graphite in the pores of the wood. Thought about trying chalk, but might have same issue.

 
Depending on the color of the wood, I use either a regular #2 pencil (lighter woods) or a silver pencil (darker woods). You can find the silver pencils at any office supply store. They also work well for marking on black synthetic materials such as G10 and Carbon Fiber.

Bob
 
Calvin Robinson said:
Anthony,
I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to do but will masking tape work for what your doing?
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I'm not sure I'm explaining it well either Calvin! Here's a quick cross section drawing of what I'm after.. Basically, I'm just asking you guys what you can use to draw or write on wood that will sand off easily and not leave anything behind. The scales have an overall taper front to back in thickness. From a profile view they have a taper front to back. Instead of just rounding over all the edges, I'm trying to give it a little more pizzazz buy using some more angled looking bevels, but when I'm sanding, I lose track of where I'm at. I was wanting to be able to just color over the wood with something that as I'm sanding will reveal where it needs more work. John, I'll try pencil I guess, just hate experimenting when I'm nearing the end.
scales.jpg
 
Self Made Knives said:
I'm not sure I'm explaining it well either Calvin! Here's a quick cross section drawing of what I'm after.. Basically, I'm just asking you guys what you can use to draw or write on wood that will sand off easily and not leave anything behind. The scales have an overall taper front to back in thickness. From a profile view they have a taper front to back. Instead of just rounding over all the edges, I'm trying to give it a little more pizzazz buy using some more angled looking bevels, but when I'm sanding, I lose track of where I'm at. I was wanting to be able to just color over the wood with something that as I'm sanding will reveal where it needs more work. John, I'll try pencil I guess, just hate experimenting when I'm nearing the end.
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Oh,now I see.
I would just free hand something that easy.:biggrin:
 
Try the welders pencils or raid the kids colored pencils? If its a dark wood use a white pencil or crayon.
 
You spying on me? LOL, that's exactly what I did last night. Found a white colored pencil in my daughter's stash, going to try it out today and see if sands off cleanly.
 
On the way home from work, I stopped by Hobby Lobby to look one last time for the elusive silver pencil. Still no go, but I did find this white pencil and tried it a little while ago. It sands off easily, doesn't seem to leave any color behind, and is very easy to see.
photo 3.jpg photo 2.jpg photo 1.jpg
 
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