It hasn’t been very long now since Milwaukee Inkzall markers have hit the market, and it was last June when we learned they would be expanding the selection with new paint markers and metallic color markers (the mention is halfway into that preview post).
I’ve bought a couple of Milwakee Inkzall markers now. They work pretty well, and are usually strategically positioned at the head of the tool aisle, at checkout stations, and at the pro counter. They’re only about $1 each.
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Now, Milwaukee is expanding the Inkzall marker lineup even further, with new highlighters (48-22-3201).
Milwaukee says that the new markers address users’ common frustrations with the tips of other highlighters getting torn up and mushroomed after few uses.
Their Inkzall jobsite highlighters are designed for rough and tough use, with durable tips that should stay sharp longer, and with up to 4X longer “cap-off life.”
The ink is bleed-resistant, quick-drying, and smear-resistant.
They come with hard hat clips and lanyard holes, and have an anti-roll design to prevent them from falling off tables and other work surfaces.
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Colors: 5 pack of yellow, or 5 pack of assorted colors, including yellow, green, pink, orange, blue.
Price: $5 for a 5-pack
See Also(Sharpie Highlighters)
See Also(Sharpie Retractable Highlighters)
First Thoughts
Does anyone really need jobsite highlighters? I’ve certainly needed tougher permanent markers before, but highlighters? I didn’t even use highlighters much in college, although I knew some people who probably would have benefited from ordering a bulk supply.
But I suppose I can see where highlights might come in handy, to make lines stand out in complex plans, as in the marketing image. Or, it could be used by a contractor discussing a line-item invoice or quote with a client.
Do professional users really go around quickly mashing the tips of their office supply store highlighters? Markers, yes, I can see how they’d see frequent abuse. But highlighters?
And this isn’t a rhetorical question, I am clueless as to how many professionals might use highlighters regularly, and how they use them.
But here’s what I’m thinking. If you’re going to make use of a highlighter, there at least doesn’t seem to be any downside to using one of the new Milwaukee’s Inkzall ones.
At $6 for a pack of 5, these are slightly more expensive than the Sharpies I found on Amazon. But if they’re more durable and longer lasting, that’s okay.
To be fair, I think that the Inkzall highlighters do look like they’d be better at home in a professional’s pocket, than one of these bright Sharpies.
Do you use highlighters in non-office environments, and would you try these?
fred
Interesting – I recall buying lots of pencils, fewer pens and markers, even fewer lumber crayons and china markers – and seldom chalk (it seemed to come in boxes that would last us years) or a soapstone marker. I don’t remember ever hearing one of the workers asking for a highlighter – but maybe if we had them they would have found a use – or more problematically have been “forgotten” in the pocket – and ended up at home being used by the kids.
Bremon
We mark up plans on site with them. Not a bad thing to have, takes up very little space.
Tom
Sharpies are about 50 cents each in a 25 pack. These and a pencil are all I generally need.
Noah
Use highlighters all the time, typically to differentiate materials on a drafting and to mark off completed sections of a project.
adam
Drafters in engineering firms often can only use their company’s standard symbols for mechanical, electrical, and plumbing. These symbols are laid down atop architectual floorplans, whose creation was under their own strictures, with cabinetry and furniture to muddle layouts. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of drafting software inconsistencies that emerge between offices. Long story, short: the simplest symbols become obscured on plans viewed in a well lit office, let alone a dimly lit job site.
James
We use highlighters at the job site to highlight portions of the work plan or field forms as needed. Not a frequent requirement, but these look like they would fit in our safety vests better than the standard highlighters our company stocks.
jim
Use highlighters all the time for takeoff and counts for bids as well as as built markup on-site – don’t know that mashed tips is that much of an issue – more colors would be great!
John
If you really need a highlighter, get a Sanford Sharpie “Clear View Tip Highlighter” kind. They have a regular sized “pen” style and chisel tip. The clear view means you can actually see through while you’re highlighting so for intricate work its great:
pen style: http://amzn.com/B019PHZMTC
chisel tip: http://amzn.com/B00K1GP6FW
As an aside, really they did the “SomethingX better lifetime”? I kinda have a chuckle now cause I totally expect it on every package Milwaukee makes for non power tool products.
Mark
Electricians use highlighters the most I think. We use them on the prints to highlight the circuits of different panels, for quickly counting devices, especially fire alarm, for knowing how wire/pipe is run, and for as-builts. Extremely helpful.
Derek
Yup. I’m a electrician and I use highlighters on bigger jobs, obviously not little service calls. But bigger jobs, you bet. Used a bunch of colors last week for marking out all the zones for my dimmer panel, the lighting pipe runs, and where all the lighting related 4-squares are at. Very useful.
John
I’m always using highlighters on commercial work:
– Estimating for different trades.
– Schedule / phasing plans – Current project is 43 floors with multiple tenants on each floor that had to have their portions of work color coded to coordinate tenant access with the building’s management office.
– Clash detection on projects that weren’t created in BIM.
– Tracking progress of different trades.
– Tracking progress of inspections by AHJs when there are multiple inspections of a single type of work i.e. concrete formwork and reinforcing on a large project.
– Occasionally to help markup product submittal and shop drawing packages but those have mostly gone electronic now which is a godsend.
When I worked for an architectural firm, each CAD operator had a different color highlighter to mark off what was complete on the architect’s red-line markups of the drawings. We knew what was done and who to blame if it wasn’t done correctly.
fred
Interesting
When we were subs on jobs – we’d sometimes get copies of Gantt Charts or Pert CPM charts – as well as plans marked up in color to flag who was doing what and when
Matt J
I like it, you lose too many changes scribbled on plans in pencil to dirt and grime
BikerDad
I use highlighters frequently when travelling, and used them frequently in the military. In both cases, they’re excellent for marking out routes on maps without obscuring the info below. What I’m curious about with these is whether they’ll fade in a few days in the sun. I suspect I may pick up a couple in order to find out.
Jerry
Pretty clever of Milwaukee, actually. I know. Markers and hilighters get used by pros and DIYers, and having a jar of these (and the inkzalls) at the checkout of the local lumberyard will cause some to get sold, if nothing else for the initial curiosity of a Milwaukee high liter.
SiSiX
My father used to be a union welder/steamfitter/boiler maker and worked on a number of large power plant projects over the years and I can remember seeing the oddball plan in his truck extensively marked up with highlighters for pipe runs, locations that were “off limits” (useful at active nuke plants I can see), or live steam runs, etc.
I’ve worked with electricians that would use them on blue prints to mark circuits that were live/dead/other (never got and explanation on “other) and the same on for rooms or breaker panels or circuits that were “off limits”.
Personally, I’ve used them on a haunted attraction (laugh! 26, 000 square feet and 1800 linear feet of 4 foot corridors with lighting, sound Fx, painting and set dressing, pneumatics, and other mechanical effects that had to be put in on schedule and working around other contractors and artists. Highlighters work wonderfully for making notes that can be seen in dim light or blocking off “DONE” sections easily and obviously without covering what’s underneath.
On that job, I managed (this was about 10 years ago) to find a couple of “office” style highlighters that retracted the tip so that at least they didn’t dry out. Still ran into problems with dust, dirt, saw dust, and “mush head” with them after a couple of days though. If these can avoid of lessen than, they’d be worth it to me.
If they glowed in black light, they’d be even better 🙂
Jeremy
We use highlighters to differentiate different types of flooring materials on plans. It really makes it simple when you have multiple areas getting different types. “What’s the closet get? It’s red on the plan so VCT-1”. It’s too simple a system to not use.