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best general purpose scriber? carbide? diamond?

proFeign

Cast Iron
Joined
Oct 2, 2007
Location
Santa Barbara, CA
howdy all,

i'm a recently graduated mechanical engineer with about 2000 hours of time in the school machine shop and other shops and I was wondering if there was a consensus about which scribe/scribe type was best for general apron-pocket use...

i've only ever used cheapo generic carbide scribes and I just broke the shank on the cheapo one I've been using. it lasted two days. it was a "general" brand one and the aluminum shaft the tip was pressed into was hollow and not really up to the job.

anyway i'd be happy to spend $30 on a good one with replaceable tips, especially if there's a good retractable one that isn't all sloppy because it's not rigid. also is diamond a bad idea for general scribing of Al and SS? I won't be mean to it but the diamond tools i've used always break or chip eventually, and usually pretty fast, and carbide is plenty hard for most of what i do, except it's pretty borderline on the super-hardened steels i occasionally have to mark. but i doubt diamond would live long enough for metal scribing to make it worth the aggravation.

i'm worried that the retractable ones will wobble around, which shouldn't be a big problem if they built it well but might be a problem on a cheapo that's like a crappy ballpoint with a scribe in place of the ink.

anyway, i'll spend the money on a good one, but if they're all pretty much the same i should probably just buy a bunch of cheap ones (this is what i do with various things like 6" flexible rules since they get lost) and just consider them a consumable...

any thoughts?
 
General use ? - Make your own from silver steel (drill rod), harden the pointy end right out. You get a few scribers out of $5 worth of rod & you have $25 to fritter away on Jack D or beer. ;)
Mark
 
I use a cheapo carbide tip scriber with replaceable points. (they will last for a long time)

How are you beating them up so quick? Its not a center punch.
 
i killed the general one by using it to gently pry something out of a recess. not the tip itself but the shank, and the tip was evidently mounted in about .05" wall hollow aluminum tubing. Snapped right off. i couldn't fit anything else i had into the hole. i would never use one as a center punch; too brittle, plus i have a decent center punch and just got a new starrett auto one.

i actually made some glass breakers out of TIG electrode stubs that i used a mill to mount into the pommel of my folding pocketknife as a striker, since they're small and a belt sander will take them right down into a nice little point. not as hard as a true carbide, but they're free...

have you used a retractable one? since i'm an engineer i have to wear somehwat nice clothes even though i spend half my time in the shop and i'd like to have one that won't put a hole in my pocket, at least not right away...
 
I have not used a retractable one. just by looking at the scripe I have here on my desk it would be easy to thread the aluminum and make a threaded sleave for it.

Pocket protectors my look nerdy but I like to use them. they look fine with a lab coat type shop frock that would protect your clothes.
 
The General one is fairly high on the scale of cost and function IMHO. Just don't abuse it.

If you need a prying and digging tool, that's what a pocket screwdriver is for
 
I favor the scribers that have a chuck that holds 1/8 shank points. You can reverse the point if you need to carry it in your pocket. I have some that came with 1/8" solid carbide points, not the 1/8" aluminum tube with the tiny carbide point. If you need a new point, it is easy to make one out of a circuit board drill, bur, endmill or 1/8" carbide rod.

I sometimes resharpen the points by chucking them in a cordless drill and spinning them against a diamond wheel on my carbide grinder.

I have diamond points, but almost never use them. The diamond phono points on 1/8 shanks are cheap, but too fragile for everyday use as a scribe. They can do a delicate form cut on a grinding wheel, but they don't stand up to a high side load. I have a diamond scribe that was designed for marking hard steel, but the support around the diamond point is too broad to allow it to scribe along a straight edge, or to see what I am doing as I scratch a letter or number into a tool.

Larry
 
"not as hard as a true carbide, but they're free"

pure tungsten is not very hard ...it can be filed
with little difficulty . i'd suggest using reamer
blanks , or rounded hss toolbit blanks ,ground to
a point. i use a t-15 blank , ground to a point.

(not an easy task! t-15 is tough to grind!)
 
I had a generic USA made retractable carbide scribe that I liked a lot. I think I screwed it up by taking it apart to see how it was made (the retractable mechanism). Never used a diamond scribe, carbide was good enough for me.

How are you beating them up so quick? Its not a center punch.
Funny you should say that. My favorite center punch has a carbide tip. Holds up a lot better than a steel one. Guess it all depends on the grade of carbide.
 
Not trying to be a jerk, but the only reason your "cheapo" scribe lasted two days is that you abused it. Scribers aren't prybars. No scriber will ever last if you use it as a prybar. I've got the exact cheapo model you're describing and have had it for years. The hollow aluminum tip is perfectly strong enough, as long as you use it only for what it was designed for. As an engineer you ought to know things are designed to be strong enough for their intended purpose, not whatever purpose you have a whim to use them for that day.

That being said, get yourself another carbide scriber, it's about the toughest point type out there as far as resisting abrasion/wear for marking steel/misc. metal surfaces. Diamond is too fragile, and with your track record, would be lucky to make it 15 minutes! :D If you want a nicer scriber, look up the reversible tip type that Larry described, those are my favorite also.
 
i like the 1/8" chuck models too. you can also use them to lightly hold a deburing blade too. which if snapped of at the bend can be ground into nice scriber points as well :)
 
gotta agree on the General scriber as a great inexpensive tool. I like to have one with the magnetic end and one without. The magnetic is invaluable sometimes for small hardware, and has a little more heft.

There's a BIG difference between a precision carbide scribe and a scratch awl (which can be used for metalwork), and the two really aren't interchangeable for the most part imo.

Empire tool also makes a nice inexpensive double ended that comes in handy... made in USA too I believe

2702-sm.jpg


http://www.empirelevel.com/specialty_tools/precision_tools/specialty_tools/

Stanley actually makes a pretty good scratch awl if you are really going to be bearing down on the tool

268425_front200.jpg
 
I have the General model. Works great.. I also have a drafting pencil with a 1/16" TIG electrode.. JRouche
 
To further clarify, silver steel is an English term not generally used in the USA. I always mentally substitute W1, or water-hardening drill rod/tool steel when I read it. For most purposes, O1 (oil-hardening tool steel) will work as well.

AISI W1 steel

Larry
 
eKretz

I don't think you're being a jerk, but i was most definitely not prying hard with it; a sturdy paperclip would have gotten the job done and my pocket screwdriver wasn't thin enough to get in the hole. ultimately i found a tiny nail to pry it out and it wasn't hard. i think the general one I had had a void or something in the aluminum tube. in any case i am super-nice to my tools generally, but this one failed well below what was resonable, I think. i believe that in another couple of weeks firm pressure while scribing along an edge would have broken it off all by itself.

as an engineer i do know these things
i wasn't "abusing" it any more than using a flexible rule to cut packing tape is "abusing" a rule. not what it was designed for, but it was pushing the envelope an equivalent amount; that is to say: it shouldn't have broken. anyway i'd rather have one with replaceable points anyway. where would you get the little collet models?
 
I have one of those cheap General brand aluminum-body-carbide-tipped scribers. Mine is used by several people. I have had excellent service from mine and plan to get more of them. Having the magnet on the end is kinda handy for storage. I just stick on the underside of a steel bench or cabinet or whatever.

I use different tools for prying things out of slots and holes. They are called picks. You can get very good stainless dental style picks that make prying small stuff really easy without damaging the hole or the pick.

Racer Al,
Good idea with the lead holders and carbide rod. What diameter rod do you use? What length?

-DU-
 








 
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