Show me your suggestion for a good height guage.

Temu has them. For our uses they are plenty accurate enough. What exactly do you want to measure?
 
Stacy.

I wanted to use mine for marking center lines on blades but when I do handles, I have a surface grinder attachment, so I square off the handle scales and can use them for good layout lines.
 
I have a double beam Mitutoyo , but knife making probably you would not need that , Shars has them on ebay right now really affordable ,if i did not have one i would look them up most of there stuff is pretty good quality. I know that digital is cool but old school indicators is the way i go myself , nothing more frustrating than finding you left everything on and its dead when you need it.
 
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I had a splendid Mitotoyo height gauge. Ex-tool room. Wood box, vernier scale. Too big, never used it, gave it away!
Still have an old APE Microball inch scale height gauge that also sees no use. Would get more if it had a carbide tip.

What actually gets used is a surface gauge and scribe, and a couple little home made scribes using broken old 1/8 shank carbide micro drills.
 
I just bought a used Mitutoyo 509-203 off of eBay for $100, and I'm kicking myself for not getting one sooner.
I previously had been using an iGaging digital height gage, which was about 1/2 the price of the used Mitutoyo when it was brand new, but I was never thrilled with it.
It worked fine enough as a height gage I suppose, and it's plenty accurate, but it didn't have a carbide scribe, and felt a little clunky when scribing centerlines. I finally bolted a carbide scribe to the hardened steel scribe that came with it, and it was better, but still not very comfortable to use.

The Mitutoyo is a night and day difference. Much cleaner scribe lines and much more comfortable to use.

Looking at the Shars, it looks very similar to my Mitutoyo, and they're a little cheaper. Looks like a pretty decent option as far as I can tell.
 
I got the 40$ one from pops. Works fine. I'm obviously not going to be scraping a surface plate with it, works for knives. I absolutely loathe electronic measuring tools. Dials all the way. Never dead batteries and veneer scales can go straight to the hell from whence they came.
 
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Machinist style ones need a decent reference surface. Fine if you're surface grinding or doing stock removal
I've found a woodwork style marking gauge is useful for the forged ones i make, it allows me to do a line that follows the local surfaces. it still requires some additional work to get a straight line, but can help establish the centre of what you've forged
 
Low tech approach here. I use a drill bit that is the same diameter as the thickness of the steel. I lay the blade on a piece of scrap plate glass then use the top of the drill bit to strike a line on the edge. Flip the blade over and do it again.
 
I had a few different cheap ones over the years and recently got a double beam-carbide tipped.

Combined with a granite surface plate and a couple of 123 block, it opens up new ways of scribing and marking.

I live in Greece and I don't which stores carry it but I've seen grizzly tools have a double beam height gauge in the vicinity of 200 usd (the electronic is more expensive but I personally prefer the dial).

You can also attach pencils/markers and do all kind of crazy scribing.
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