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Your early projects don’t have to end up as firewood. When people see the Philadelphia-style secretary I built, they inevitably want to know how long I have been making furniture and how many [...]

You, too, can determine moisture content simply by feeling a board. Murphy had never bought lumber from us before. He watched his boards carefully as they were loaded onto his truck. “They look [...]

No doubt, you’ll fit right in. A woodworking club offers countless rewards to the aspiring craftsman. It provides a platform for displaying your work. It offers the chance to learn new [...]

So you can’t afford (insert dream tool here). Boo hoo. Hit the flea markets then start making sawdust. Yeah, you heard me. Oh sure, I know exactly how it is. The new catalogs come piling into [...]

Walk down Main Street in Anysmalltown, U.S.A., and people acknowledge your existence from their porch rockers. They don’t have to say anything, just use their body to move the chair in a [...]

The perilous flight of the world’s most valuable tool. Half of the airplane’s hydraulic system had failed at take-off; the other half failed as the plane was 10 minutes from the Atlanta airport. [...]

How one woodworker got over her fear of dismemberment: more fear. Industrial Technology. That was the name of the course I took in the autumn of 1993. Beats me as to why it was entitled thus, [...]

Beating it requires knowing the right way to nail a board. When I was about 8 years old, I decided that I needed to construct a sturdy fort to protect myself from the army of aliens (who cleverly [...]

A 12-step program for regrowing forearm hair. I head through the main doors, down the stairs to the basement, arriving at the third door on the right. Like everyone else, I grab a cup of coffee [...]

Sometimes a little talking-to (and video surveillance) is all it takes. I have noticed three things about tools and kids. Kids can find tools even if it requires tunneling under the garage wall. [...]

No sick days, no paid vacations and no IT department – but it’s worth it. Ah, going pro – telling your boss to take your day job and stick it in his ear while you go off to earn your …

If all you have is a hammer, well, you might need another hammer. One of my favorite quotes is Baruch’s Observation: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It seems like an [...]