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Found a better way to mark round tanks for cutouts

Had a job last week on a 12ft diameter tank, marker lines kept washing off before I could cut. Tried chalk, soapstone, even a sharpie but the residue from the old lining was eating through all of it. Finally grabbed a spring-loaded center punch and a piece of string, made a crude trammel and dimpled the circles instead of drawing them. Worked way better than I expected, the dimples held up through grinding and gave me a solid edge to follow. Anyone else got a trick for marking on greasy or lined surfaces that actually sticks?
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alicehernandez
alicehernandez1mo agoTop Commenter
That trammel trick is solid. It got me thinking about using the same idea but with a carbide scriber instead of a punch, just to test it on real greasy steel. The dimples are nice because they're physical, but a scratch line that's deep enough might work just as well and give you a continuous path. Could even drag a soapstone over the scratch afterward to fill it in, makes it way easier to see. Either way, anything that leaves a physical mark beats anything that relies on ink or chalk on those old lined tanks.
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