Tool Hound Favorites: Bolt-Hole Marker

comments (1) July 27th, 2011 in Blogs

Justin Fink, Senior Editor

5 users recommend

Photo: Big Foot Tools

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Today's must-have tool comes from Larry Haun - longtime Fine Homebuilding contributor, ringleader of A Carpenter's View blog, and author of the new book, out this Fall, A Carpenter's Life - My Story as Told By Houses"

"Back in the early 50s, when we went from building one house at a time to building a tract of 500 homes or more, we quickly found that it took too much time, using a combination square and tape measure, to transfer the location of anchor bolts in a slab onto the bottom plate of a wall. Homemade bolt-hole markers were the solution, and the first I saw was a simple device made from a piece of wood lath. A notch was cut in the end of the lath to fit around a ½ in. bolt. Then an 8d nail was driven partially through the lath 3½ in. back from the center of the notch. Once the wall line was snapped on the slab, we laid the 2x4 plate directly on the line, put the marker tool against the bolt, and tapped the nail to mark where to drill each hole in the plate.

For many years, framers used this same tool made from a metal plate strap until it was produced commercially. One such commercially available version comes from Big Foot Tools. With this tool you can easily mark the location (on 2x4 and 2x6 plates) of bolts ranging from ½ in. to 1¼ in. The marking pin in the stand-up model is spring-loaded so it retracts each time you mark a bolt location"

Thanks, Larry! The standup version of this marking tool sells for $33 from DHC Supplies. I wasn't able to find an online distributor for the handheld version, but those who are interested can find a list of distributors on the company's website.

Thanks, Larry! The standup version of the tool is available online from DHC Supplies for $33. I wasn't able to find the handheld version for sale online (if others can, please post a link), but Big Foot Tools does have a list of distributors for those who are interested.

2011 Tool Guide
From the editors of Fine Woodworking and Fine Homebuilding 225 tools tested $9.99 more info...

posted in: Blogs, framing, mudsill, sill, bolt

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Comments (1)

timrowledge writes: Cool tool; I wish I had known about it last year when doing mudsills on my own house. I actually invented something similar to do the job and in fact it is in the pile of possible FHB tips that might get published one day...
Posted: 1:08 pm on August 15th

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