How to Remove Pencil Marks?

[Foresty Forest]

I've got some pencil marks on an ash picture frame where I've marked out the mitre? I've tried sanding them away but that's not getting rid of them completely, and I'm losing too much wood. Is there another way of removing them?

 

[foxhole]

Pencil eraser

 

[big-all]

old trick try a slice off white bread the grease oil fat in the bread help dissolve the pencil lead and the rough texture help clean
squidge the bread up into a pad

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Even older trick - "use a 2H pencil and don't make your marks so big and heavy", as my old teacher would say.

You could always try acetone (nail polish remover), though, as it often works whilst not raising the grain like water would

 

[Mr Chibs]

old trick try a slice off white bread the grease oil fat in the bread help dissolve the pencil lead and the rough texture help clean
squidge the bread up into a pad

Grease oil fat... It's 2021, about time you tried sourdough...

 

[Deleted member 174758]

What about unleavened bread? I'm all in favour of diversity...

 

[^woody^]

Who has bread in the workshop. Do biscuits work instead?

 

[big-all]

use a chocolate hob nob and the chocolate all over the wood will detract from the pencil marks

 

[johnny2007]

Make another frame, it would be quicker than what's proposed here

 

[Foresty Forest]

Obviously the best way to remove pencil marks, would be to not make any pencil marks in the first place. What can I use instead? Something to score a line like a bradawl? Or is there a special carpetnters tool for the job?

 

[johnny2007]

Don't mark the lines too much.
After some practice, you'll work out how to mark in the exact spot so when you cut, the blade takes the pencil mark with it.

 

[Munroast]

Don't mark the lines too much.
After some practice, you'll work out how to mark in the exact spot so when you cut, the blade takes the pencil mark with it.

Thats the trick

But out of total coincidence, last night I was making a frame for what will be a glass lidded box, I made a pencil mark what I thought would be the wrong side of the cut just to remind me which way the mitre would go - but stupidly it is on the good side. I don't know how this box is to be finished yet, hopefully it will be paint, but if it is to be a light danish oil or something then I read this thread with interest. -LOL

 

[conny]

2H pencils are very light, (compared to 2B !), and that is all I will use for marking out wood. Always make sure it is sharp so your line is very thin, (I have no idea how some people use these 'carpenters' pencils, so dark and blunt quite quickly). Don't use a bradawl of knife unless you are absolutely certain the saw blade will fall exactly on the line and remove the evidence.

 

[big-all]

2H pencils are very light, (compared to 2B !), and that is all I will use for marking out wood. Always make sure it is sharp so your line is very thin, (I have no idea how some people use these 'carpenters' pencils, so dark and blunt quite quickly). Don't use a bradawl of knife unless you are absolutely certain the saw blade will fall exactly on the line and remove the evidence.

Technically speaking you cut out half the mark on the waste side if you mark exactly on the measurement, otherwise you are half the mark short on your length

 

[conny]

We were taught to leave 1/32" wastage and then plane it down on a shooting board. Teachers eyesight 'seemed' so good he would walk past, slap the back of your head and ask why you had left 1/16" because it would cause you more work to remove it. He was tough but fair and I remember a lot of what he taught.