I was inspired when I saw
this marking gauge design posted recently, so I made it!
Both mortises were chopped by hand and using hand pressure only. The tiny mortise may have been too fragile, but I chopped the bigger mortise that way just because I could do it late at night haha. I still need to do better at chopping mortises at a perfect 90 degrees. This was definitely wonky and needed to be cleaned up more afterwards.
I used a metalworking tap and die for the thumbscrew spots and that worked surprisingly well. On top of that I used a hacksaw and a file to make one of the thumb screws a little shorter.
I wish I'd ordered the hardware and razors before I started the project, rather than after I finished it. It turns out the little mortise should have been a little bigger and while I have cut it a little bigger, there's not a lot of space left; I'll probably redo this whole thing again at some point.
While it looks nice, the finish of paste wax is not great. Since you run the marking gauge along work that very well may be covered in sawdust, the piece gets messy and sorta gross. I may refinish the whole thing with a hardier finish some time. Also, I don't love the razor as much as I expected I would? The more traditional pin is much sturdier. I had wanted to be able to use a pencil gauge since seeing the idea, but I have yet to actually want to use a pencil gauge outside of just a regular marking gauge with a pencil line inside it.