I'm an ol' pencil drafter myself but I surely use a knife or scribe
whenever I want a layout mark that will also cut the fibers so I get a
clean cut and have a guide for my backsaw or chisel, etc,

In fact, one tip I give out for doing mortises with a chisel mortise
is to layout the rectangle and do deep knife cuts so the overlapping
cuts of the square chisel find their way into the knof cut and you get
nice clean long sides.

On Jul 13, 5:49*pm, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:
Subject

Maybe spending my early years on a drafting board has affected the way
I approach things, but doing layouts with a scale that doubles as a
straight edge and some sharp 3H drafting pencils works for me most of
the time.

An old electric pencil sharpener is quite helpful.

Lew