Jim Crammond wrote:

> No one(where are you hiding Ralph?) has responded to
> your query about your newly acquired marking gage, so
> I'll offer my opinion.

I'm still here, just mightily busy.  Between work, the CATS/MWTCA meet 
coming up in Chicago on 11/27, and my other big project (more to 
follow), I've been pretty booked.

The "big project" is that we just heard from Doug Cox, the national 
meeting director for the MWTCA, that Chicago has been awarded the 2005 
MWTCA fall national!  This is a *huge* accomplishment for Slav and the 
rest of the CATS guys, and we are all pretty excited about it.

Slav did most of the leg work setting it all up, but I get to take all 
the glory (yeah, right) as the official meeting host.  I'll obviously be 
relying a lot on the CATS guys for help, so it's not going to be so bad. 
  We've only got a year to get ready for this, so the wheels are already 
in motion.

As I've been telling folks (using my best Blues Brothers Chicago 
accent)-- "We're on a mission from gahd..."

So, Galoots-- mark your calendars for next October!  The MWTCA fall 
national will be at the Pheasant Run Resort (which is both hoity *and* 
toity) in St. Charles, IL (about 40 miles west of Chicago). We are 
expecting a near-record turnout, and I hope to see a lot of galoots there.

Anyway, back the the question at hand-- Josh Clark's interesting marking 
gage:

> His
> theory is that they where made by Chapin-Stephens and
> its forerunners.  There are similar gages shown in the
> Chapin Stephens catalog that has been reprinted.

Yeah, these oval-headed gages with the brass buttons are almost 
certainly C-S, but I have never seen one marked with the name.  They 
look just like the old catalog cuts, though, right down to the unusual 
graduations.

C-S made these in a wide variety of woods, both with and without head 
and arm plating.  There are also cutting gages in this pattern, but they 
are harder to find.

As users they are quite nice (gotta love oval heads), but they are 
missing one important feature-- a brass shoe to protect the arm from the 
thumbscrew.  A lot of these you find will have the back of the arm all 
pock-marked from overzealous tightening of the screw.  Once this happens 
their usefulness diminishes drastically, since the screw wants to go in 
the existing divots instead of where you want it to...
-- 
Ralph Brendler, Chicago, IL - OTLM, ENB, FOYBIPO
"Science works even if you don't believe in it..." - Penn Jillette