>> ibjb wrote

>>  In 1929 Henry Mercer  wrote in Ancient Carpenters=92 Tools, RACE =
KNIFE=20
>> =93the
>> lumberman=92s  little two- or three- pronged timber scribe or scorer=20=

>> used to
>> register tallies, numerals, crosses, circles, etc. on log ends, balks=20=

>> or boards
>> for selling them,

>>  or otherwise to mark the parts of worked up material in
>> assembling it into framework.

So this is the tool that made the roman numeral marks on all of the=20
barn frames that we see locally (and I am sure, not so locally also)

Ed Minch