Tips for soapstone that nobody talks about

I had the same problem with keeping my sticks intact when I was setting up my garage shop a couple of years ago. I usually just let them sit in a plastic tub, but they always seemed to get crushed by heavy clamps or rolls of wire. My expirience was that the chalk tends to shed a lot, which actually makes the sticks crumble faster than I expected. Instead of using a wrapping method, I cut a small plastic compartment out of a cheap parts storage bin and simply laid the sticks in there. It kept them from rolling around and prevented any of the fine powder from dusting my bench. I also found that using a specific brand of permanent marker, like a Sharpie, to draw a small X on the steel where you are placing the tack worked better for me than just using chalk. It gives you a solid visual confirmation that you are in the right spot even when the metal gets dark. It helped me keep track of where I had already completed my tack.

Ha, I can see the candy mixup happening way too easy. I keep mine in an old plastic straw dispenser tube my kid outgrew, works about the same as your sleeve idea. Once a stick gets down to a nub I superglue it to the end of a pencil eraser and squeeze a few more weeks out of it. Not pretty but it works.

I gave up on round sticks years ago and switched to the flat rectangular ones from the masonry aisle. Been fitting pipe for about 19 years and a round stick whould be down to chunks in a month for me, but the flat ones survive loose in my hood bag and a single one gets me thru most of a season. Bonus is nobody mistakes a flat slab for candy either, it looks nothing like a fun dip stick. They mark a little wider but for centerlines and cut lines that never bothered me.

Ha, the candy sleeve thing reminds me of what the old layout man showed me when I was an apprentice. He'd slide his stick into a short chunk of 3/8 copper tubing and push it up with a bolt as it wore down. Same idea, just plumbing scrap instead of candy wrappers. That tube lived in his shirt pocket for years.

I'll add one thing to the hot metal part. If you absolutely have to mark something that's already warm, a soapstone line held against the plate for a couple seconds longer burns in darker and hangs on a bit better than a quick pass. Not a fix, just buys you time to get your tack down.