Over The Workbench

Industrial arts education, often including woodshop, has been disappearing from high schools at an alarming rate. It just happened where I live.

Even when you do it right the very first time, it’s amazing how much you learn about everything that can be wrong.

I have a bad habit that I know a lot of other woodworkers share: Endlessly obsessing over flaws and errors in perfectly good work.

I’m finally at the point of my shop build where I’m tackling the secondary stuff. That’s a Good Thing in general, but it also means I’m getting rid of stacks.

I’ve talked before about how much I hate changing band saw blades. Guess what? I’m talking about it again.

When’s the last time you crawled around on the shop floor? Never, you say?

While a pain to do I’ve generally not really minded figuring out my taxes most years. This isn’t going to be one of those years.

Is there ever an excuse for taking the easy – read: lazy – way out on a project?

The biggest problem with being able to do whatever you want with a project is that you sometimes have way too many choices.

Most shop screw-ups are simple, one-error things. Some of mine have more components than a Shakespearean play.

I have one drawback I can’t fix in my wonderful new shop. Instead, I’ll have to change – slightly – the way I work.

Amid the constant debate of manufacturing locations, I think it all boils down to two things.

In woodworking, as in everything else, sometimes it’s the smallest of things that give the greatest unexpected pleasure.

At what point on a problematic project must you decide whether to keep struggling to get it done, or to move on to something more productive?

Eight months after moving, and I’m still setting up my shop. But I finally took care of something that I’ve really missed, and I am a happy guy.

When you’re a woodworker, few things are cooler than running into another woodworker where you least expect it.

Imagine Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent finally revealing who they really are. Like those other superheroes, I, too, have a secret identity.

There are a lot of extremely common woodworking tasks and techniques. But some, no matter how common, are things I’ve never done.

Tools companies drive me nuts. They come out with the neatest tools with lots of bells and whistles, but sometimes miss the basics.

Woodworkers see things differently from other (some would say “normal”) people. Here’s a perfect example.