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Make unique marks for the face and edge of the board
These furniture maker’s symbols are an international language. They have been used for generations because they’re easy to make and easy to understand.
A board’s working face and edge are the surfaces that all measurements are taken from. This dates back to when boards where planed by hand. You couldn’t count on every side to be strictly parallel, so two were designated as reference surfaces. It’s still a good idea. These marks can mean front and top, too.
Cabinetmaker’s triangle
The cabinetmaker’s triangle is a straightforward method of marking boards to be joined together. Imagine an old-time shop. The master carefully arranges the boards to make the most pleasing pattern, then scrawls this triangle across the boards and hands them off to an apprentice to glue up. These days, this mark is just a handy reminder of what our intentions were when we laid out the boards last weekend!
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
