Chris Dunn wrote:
>The old rule companies figured out the marking. After thinking about
>it more, perhaps they:

>1. punched the numbers.
>2. put shellac on it to seal it.
>3. painted the numbers.
>4. wiped the paint off

>I might try the above steps and see how it goes. Perhaps add step 1.5,
>oil the cherry.<


I've done similar things. for binding and for marking bone, even tried adding
milimeters to an old pocket folding rule once. Just the shellac may be enough,
if you use orange shellac and depending on the depth and width of the numbers
and lines (knife-cut narrow work best), and if you completely fill the
depression with the shellac. I suspect that this is all the old companies did.
Or you can, as suggested, try paint-- I've used India ink, more controllable and
dead black and already has shellac in it. Or you could try picking up ink on the
face of the punch from a stamp pad, or spread some thick oil-based ink on a bit
of board and pick that up. Narrow lines or numbers work best, they hold the ink
well, and depth isn't necessary. With a wide line you tend to wipe the ink out
when you wipe the surface. Wiping off the excess ink tends not to work well
enough, just enough ink is left to dirty the surface up, so you have to abrade a
bit.With a deeply-driven number, the impression widens and what you see when the
impression is completely filled is not the true shape, which is at the bottom of
the impression, but a thicker, less precise approximation---the stamp-pad idea
might be worth a first try if the numbers are driven in deeply. I would put
shellac on after pigmenting the numbers as well as before, especially if using
stamp-pad ink. I don't think I would oil the cherry before shellacking, since
this would darken the wood and reduce contrast and visibility of the numbers.
And my main experience is that its hard to get things to look good, so yes,
practice on scrap, and be prepared to abrade down the surface a bit to clean it,
or to narrow the punched lines (which, of course, may then require you to re-
punch if you narrow some too much.)

Tom Conroy