Scribing Tool

I mentioned in my last tool post that I’d ordered a scriber (General Tools Etching Pen/Scriber) but it hadn’t arrived yet. Well it did arrive and I finally had a chance to use it last night. My hope in getting it would be that it would be easier/more comfortable to scribe starter lines in styrene pieces than an Xacto blade then using those scribe lines to guide the Xacto blade on subsequent cuts.

So far it’s been working out like I’d expect. The problem I still have with pieces like this are that I don’t have a good way to hold rules in place precisely but a light pass makes it a little easier to stay steady with the rule. What caught me off guard is just how well it works, it shouldn’t have been a surprise as this is marketed for use on “all metals, ceramics, and glass”. On a thin sheet of styrene this could probably be used to cut all the way through in just a few passes. I also found following the scribed path very slowly and lightly with the Xacto blade resulted in a much cleaner and precise cuts just taking longer, but that’s probably a work smarter not harder thing 🙂