An alternative to a vibrating engraver

Here's another vote for marking the tools, but there's a much neater way of marking than the vibrating engraver that I would suggest. The Etch-O-Matic electro-etching system works like a charm, or you could try building a homemade varient of the Etch-O-Matic from a metal block, a couple thicknesses of felt, a piece of mimeograph stencil (although I'm not sure where you'd find a mimeograph stencil today, so maybe you'd need to buy the Etch-O-Matic stencils), a DC power supply, and an electrolite solution (saltwater works). A typewriter (another hard-to-find item today) makes the neatest stecil, but even a hand-printed stencil makes a easier-to-read mark than a vibrating engraver does.

The Etch-O-Matic markings I put on some of my own tools 40 years ago are still clearly legible.

John